


Rivalry ~ A Harry Potter Fanfiction

by Young_Blood_Chronicles



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, F/F, F/M, Fan Characters, Gay Male Character, Gay Rights, Genderqueer Character, Its really gay, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Themes, Lesbian Relationship, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Originally Posted Elsewhere, Pansexual Character, Pansy is different in this one, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Trans Female Character, gay relationship, vitiligo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 16:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13275204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Young_Blood_Chronicles/pseuds/Young_Blood_Chronicles
Summary: The First Wizarding War left many scars on family trees that will never heal, and two of those trees were the Okello and Dourado families. After Estevao Dourado was murdered the night before his first born son's birthday, he left his wife, Namazzi Dourado (nee Okello), alone with three children for the short but dangerous reminder of the war. Thankfully, they were not harmed, but this would forever change the lives of his children, even the one he never got the chance to meet.Rosario "Rio" Dourado is the youngest of the Dourado family. Her mother says she's just like him, physically and emotionally. She personally doesn't see the resemblance. She's heard dozens of stories about her heroic father, and sees that as too much to live up to. But just because she doesn't want to admit it, that doesn't mean they aren't similar. Always determined, always thinking, and of course, always trying to get herself hurt in different ways. Her first year of Hogwarts is coming up and she must decide who to befriend, who to antagonize, and most importantly, who to trust. She has no idea what the world has planned for her, and frankly, that's a good thing.(ANY EDITS WILL BE DONE ON MY WATTPAD ACCOUNT FIRST)





	1. The Last Supper

** 1st of March, 1980 - 8:32 pm inside a Muggle restaurant in Belfast, Northern Ireland **

I sat at my table for three impatiently, tapping my foot as I repeatedly checked my watch. He's never late for anything, especially if it involves food.

"Be here by eight my ass..." I muttered to myself in spite. My ears picked up a familiar voice in the front of the restaurant. I looked up to the reception to see the man I was waiting for.

"I'm looking for a Estêvão Dourado?" The man at the front counter asked the greeter. The lady skimmed through the reservation list then guided him towards my table. I got up to greet him, I put my hand out for him to shake but instead he pulled me into a bear hug. After my realization I quickly returned it. I towered over him, so it was kind of an awkward hug as he is barely up to my shoulder. At least it's easier to tell which one of us is the older brother. After we pulled out of it he flashed a toothy grin and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Sorry, I'm late!" He said to me. "My flight yesterday got overbooked and I had to reschedule one for today, I just came out of the airport." Adelmar has the odd quirk of using Muggle transportation. He could've gotten here much faster using magic, especially since he's coming here from New York City. I personally don't understand how he gets pleasure from doing this time-costly method, but he says it's a experience to be had.

"Good, I thought you ditched me to go to a bar." I joked with him before we both sat down in our respective seats. I gave him a chance to look at the menu (which he promptly ordered many dishes). I don't know how he stays in shape with the amount of food he eats. I had to diet like crazy to stay in shape, yet we look the exact same! We used to look completely different when we were younger, now we could be mistaken for twins. Maybe some potion type of potion he made? After we had placed our orders, we finally we able to talk to each other.

"Every year that passes seems to get faster." Adelmar sighed while fiddling with his fork. "It's like only yesterday you graduated from Castelobrunx and left for London."

I nodded in agreement. "How's  _mãe_?"

"Mom's doing fine, getting older by the second, but definitely managing." Adelmar explained. "She keeps on getting offers from newspapers and authors to write biographies of her. Her being a former headmistress and all."

"Understandable, and how's little Leandra?" I then asked.

His eyes rolled at the sound of his son's name, but he still smiled. "Fen and I are surprised how mischievous he can get." He told me. "He took my hair oil and replaced it paint, then he used her crayons to draw all over my suit jackets, and THEN he mixed my white dress shirts with my wife's red skirt, and now I have a bunch of pink dress shirts!"

I laughed his struggles. "Well, personally I think you look good in pink." I assured.

"I do?" He rubbed his temple with one finger.

"Of course you do! Better than you do in blue." I pointed at his checkered blue tie and we both laughed boisterously. After we had quieted down, Adelmar took a sip of his white wine.

"How's your boys?" He asks me after he set his glass down.

"Great! My oldest's second birthday is tomorrow in fact, you should stay for it." I suggested.

"Of course I will," He exclaimed. "your boys always love a visit from Uncle Maro."

"Never understood how Roldao and Filipe liked you so much." I told him, and he chuckled.

"I think it's because I always let them ride with me on my broom when I visit." Adelmar said to me.

Our appetizers came, and we started to eat. "I also have some good news." I said as I wiped my mouth.

"What is it?" He asked with his mouth full, a bad habit of his.

"Me and Namazzi are expecting a third one on the way due in October." I told him.

He choked on his oyster, but quickly washed it down with some wine. "A third one? Give your wife a break there, Estêvão!" He smirked while I sighed at his joke.

He put his fork down. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding  _meu amigo_!" He redeemed himself. "So do you know if it's a boy or girl?"

"Too early to tell." I told him. "My wife hopes it's a girl, but I'm fine either a boy or girl."

"While either way, congratulations." Adelmar said before scarfing down more of the appetizers.

"Who's the extra chair for?" My brother asked me after finally noticing it was a table for three.

"Cisco is in town and wanted to join us for dinner. He has a short mission in the area today, so he'll be late." I told him.

Adelmar's rubbed his forehead as he sighed. "I thought we agreed on not inviting him." He complained. "I broke up with him years ago, stop trying to get us back together. Besides, I'm in a happy marriage with my wife."

"By broke up you mean separated forcibly because of a war that threatened both your lives?" I corrected him. "You still love him, don't you?"

There was a silence between me and my brother, the only sounds being from the kitchen and the other tables around us. Adelmar sloshed around the drink in his glass. "That's between me Francisco, when he gets here I'll treat him like we're old friends and leave it at that."

"You'll have to talk about it someday with him,  _meu irmão mais novo_." I told him.

"It's  _complicado_." He said. "Like everything in this war is."

We talked, joked, and complained about our respective lives as we waited for our meals to arrive. I work with the Ministry of Magic as Head of the Auror Department, while Adelmar is an Auror for the MACUSA. Both of us have some wacky adventures we've had while on the job. My brother explained to me how he passed by a Muggle family bakery that had pastries and biscuits in the shape of actual magical creatures. When he went to go inquire the man at the front desk he simply replied "Just my great grandpappy's kooky ideas, it makes us a mint so we don't change anything". He told me many more stories of his missions in New York, and everything seemed so peaceful in the US compared to the UK (with the exception of the occasional magical creature escape).

The reminder that I've been fighting a war for nearly a decade always seems to amaze me when my mind crosses the thought. Ten years of my life devoted to the Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry, my two, soon to be three,  _crianças_ , and above all, my beautiful wife Namazzi. I should probably visit Adelmar in New York sooner or later, I need to see how much Leandra has grown and catch up with  _mãe_  over some tea.

Our main courses had arrived and the friendly waiter set our dishes down in front of us. But as soon as I touched my fork, the ground shook vigorously. At first, I thought it was an earthquake, but as I listened closely outside, I realized it wasn't all that, as I heard a familiar voice shouting curse words at somebody in their native tongue, Cusco Quechen in a blender with Spanish profanity folded in with some Portuguese. Adelmar seemed to have the same reaction as we both ran out of the restaurant to see if we were right.

What we saw, we almost couldn't process.

Several muggle cars were on fire and crushed, and there was a gas leak coming a pipe underground. There was smoke everywhere, and it was extremely difficult to make out anything in it. But, the shadowy figure we saw in the smoke confirmed our suspicions.

"Francisco..." We said in unison.

The only figure we could make out was our dear old friend Francisco de la Fuente. In the words of a young Adelmar, "The Peruvian heartthrob that won't shut up", but now he would describe him as a heartbreaker instead of something that endearing. The smoke was covering mostly everything, but we could make out his signature baby blue suit in the heat of the moment. Then we realized that he wasn't just launching spells to make a grand entrance (we wouldn't be surprised if he did though), but he was fighting multiple Death Eaters at once.

Me and Adelmar both drew our wands, getting ready to face whatever was going to be thrown at us. I spotted Cisco in behind cover, and quickly dived in to help him.

"Sorry I'm late!" Was the first thing he told me. "I spotted them trying to find you around Knockturn Alley a couple days ago. Started following them ever since then"

I quickly went up and shot a disarming spell, hoping it would hit someone. "After me?" I asked.

"Sounded like it!" He said. "But the description they were giving was vague until yesterday when someone at the Leaky Cauldron told them where you were. I didn't want to warn you, so I tried to take them down myself-"

"Shut up you idiot!" Adelmar yelled at Cisco. "We have bigger problems right now!

That's when the real duel started. There were five Death Eaters that were all trying to jinx me, but Adelmar and Cisco were able to help me in launching counter-curses fast enough so they wouldn't hit me. We got closer and closer until we were about ten meters away from them. One of the curse reflected back at one of the Death Eater, which immediately threw him back hard enough that he was knocked out. I was able to launch a spell that was able to hit two of them, which now gave us an advantage in numbers.

I started laughing when one of the spells missed so badly that it was comparable to a seven year old with a broken wand. Well, I stopped laughing soon.

" _CONFRINGO!_ "

There was a explosion right in front of me, and the three of us were thrown back several meters and hit the ground with a loud thud. I felt a number of my ribs crack and multiple open wounds in my thigh and shoulder. I groaned in pain as the world spun around me, and I saw my little brother crawl up beside me, hovering over me and looking at my wounds.

"We have to get you out of here, CISCO WE HAVE TO GO!"

My head flopped over to the other side as Francisco quickly grabbed onto my hand and Adelmar's. We were about to apparate until I saw one of the Death Eater point his wand at Adelmar.

"GO!" I yelled as I quickly used my body as a shield to protect my brother. The world disappeared as I felt the spell it hit my chest.

**~~~~~~~~~**

Me, Adelmar, and Estevao hit the cold floor of the St. Mungos lobby room. The reception lady seemed startled confused at first, but when she saw the large gashes and bruises the three of us had, she quickly called an emergency team.

"We made it..." I said to Estevao and Adelmar, waiting for a response. After a couple of seconds, the sounds of a man crying filled the empty waiting room. I looked over to see Estevao lying on the ground with his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.

"Wake up Estie..." Adelmar sobbed out. "c'mon you're in there somewhere!"

I knew all too well what had happened, and I scooted over to Maro's side and held him as I felt a tear dribble down the side of my cheek. He laid his head on the chest of his older brother, trying to hear a heartbeat.

Silence was all that answered him.

**~TO BE CONTINUED~**


	2. Last Minute Shopping

** 31st of August, 1991 - 11:52am inside a house in London, England **

There is this saying I hear a lot of muggles tell each other when I'm skateboarding around my neighbourhood or at the park. "Better to be three hours too early than one minute too late". I asked my great  _bibi_  about it and she says it's from some famous old muggle poet, from all the way back in the 1500s.

"She was supposed to be here three hours ago..." My  _babu_  sighed to himself as he checked his watch for the seventh time and tapped his foot impatiently in front of the fireplace.

My mom must've heard it wrong.

I was sitting in the living room of my great  _bibi's_  house in the Whitechapel District of London. We actually live in Soho, but I've been staying here for almost a day with my two older brothers, Roldao and Pip. My mom was on an important business trip to France to interview the Beaubaxton's Headmistress. She works for the Daily Prophet as one of their head journalists.

"Don't be so hard on her, Mwaka! She's just doing her job." My great  _bibi_  scolded her son while she was knitting in the corner of the living room, sitting in her rocking chair. My  _babu_  sighed at her comment.

My great  _bibi_ , Nantale Okello, is from Kampala, Uganda, and graduated from Uagadou. At the old age of 92, she's probably the smartest person I know. She even used to work at Hogwarts as the Transfiguration Professor, and did so for 41 years until retiring in 1970. She met my great  _babu_ , Adora Okello, there as well as he was the Charms Professor. Then you have my  _babu_  Mwaka Okello who's a retired Auror and my great auntie Nakakande Okello, who works in Italy as a magizoologist.

Me and my two older brothers were sitting on the same couch, with me in between. I was completely bored out of my mind and fidgeting more than I usually do (which is usually a lot). I wanted to grab my book that I've been reading for the past week, but I've already read through it at least five times and now it's generally boring. the other books I had were just random books I'm borrowing from my great  _bibi_  that I'm gonna read on the train to Hogwarts. Roldao was sitting patiently beside me, petting my great  _bibi's_  great grey owl, Walter, while polishing his new Nimbus 2000 that he got for his thirteenth birthday. Pip, on the other hand, was continuing to poke me in my side, which had no effect on me.

"Are you SURE you're not ticklish?" He asked me for the ten time in the past seven minutes. He has been talking non-stop for the last hour, which has greatly annoyed me and Roldao. Luckliy, my oldest brother didn't have to sit beside him. He asked me a plethora of questions, most of which he knows the answers to already. I'm fine with answering questions, but when the questioner has full knowledge of the answers, it becomes annoying and irrelevant.

I sighed in frustration. "For the thousandth time, Pip." I said to my brother. "I AM NOT TICKLISH. So, stop poking me for Christ's sake."

There was I silence between the two of us for a blissful moment. Until I felt his finger poke my side once again and I finally lost it. I took him by the shoulders and wrestled him to the ground. I pinned him to the ground and tried to elbow him in the face, but he kept on dodging it.

"YOU ANNOYING, BLITHERING SACK OF-" My mouth was suddenly shut and the two of us started to float mid air. We were suddenly separated till we were on opposite ends of the room. We looked over to the fireplace to see our mom standing right in front of the fire place. Her fir wood wand was in her hand, directed at us, while rubbing her temples in frustration with the free hand.

"Hey mum!" Pip waved at my mom. She sighed at my brother's obliviousness. At that point my oldest brother had already put away him book into his backpack and stood ready to leave beside my mother and  _babu_.

"What's the problem now?" She asked the two of us. My mother never had a strong Ugandan accent like my great  _bibi_  and my  _babu_ , but there were hints of it when she was mad. Like now. I tried to say something, but my mouth was still shut tight, and all was coming out was muffled noises.

"Rio got mad at me for just BARELY touching her!" He complained. I gave him a nasty look as we were set down onto the floor. I tried to say something again, but my mouth was still shut. Maybe my mom knew I would be swearing at the top of my lungs, or she just didn't want to deal with the two of us arguing.

"Filipe," My mom said to him in the stern tone. She's the only one that calls us by our full names. "you know Rosario doesn't like being physically touched without permission. You should know better."

I saw my great  _bibi_  roll her eyes and put down her knitting tools. "Physical touch in general,  _mjukuu wa kike_. You can graze her shoulder and she'll complain."

My mom sighed as I physically felt her loosen the grip on my mouth. I rubbed my jaw as I tried to sooth the soreness in the joints. My mom walked up to me and bent down to get at my eye level. My mom was quite tall at a impressive 6'1. She brushed one of my curly locks out of my face and brushed it behind my ear.

"You know what I said about using physical force." She told me as she fixed my flannel collar. "We only use it when absolutely necessary."

My great  _bibi_ scoffed. "That's not what you did when you first went to Hogwarts!" She commented.

"Not the time for that story,  _bibi_." My mom said. She turned to me and my brothers and took a deep breath. "Sorry I'm late, the interview ran longer than I thought it would go. Diagon Alley is probably packed right now for last minute shopping. C'mon, hurry into the fireplace."

I slung my worn-out messenger bag around my body as Roldao transported through the fireplace. Next was Pip, as he waved goodbye to my  _babu_  and great  _bibi_  as he disappeared. I hugged my  _babu_  as he kissed me on the forehead, then walking over to my great  _bibi_.

"What house do you want to get into, Rio?" She asked me.

I hadn't really thought about it. I was expected to get into Slytherin, like the rest of my family. But the other houses sound nice as well. It would be kind of lonely being separated from my brothers, but getting to meet different types of people would be great. My mom's always busy writing articles or at some interview, so I either tag along or end up just staying at home fiddling with random Muggle objects I find (usually I buy them at garage sales and flea markets). That's where I found my skateboard, which took me about two months to find out how it works. That's when my brothers are at Hogwarts of course. Over the summer my brothers (more specifically Pip) have been pestering me about what I wanted to do when I got to Hogwarts.

"I don't really know," I admitted to my great  _bibi_. "I just want to have more friends that aren't our family and pets."

My great  _bibi_  laughed at my comment. "The Sorting Hat is never wrong. Just because your brothers are Slytherins, doesn't mean you'll be sorted in with them. Everyone is different, regardless of who your parents are and how you were raised."

I took her words into consideration as I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. As I waited for for my turn to go into the fireplace, I thought about how maybe I could be the first person in my family to be sorted into a house that wasn't Slytherin. I was lost in the thought as my mom poured powder into my hand. I took a step into the fireplace (I had to bend down a bit to fit), but I tripped at the end and dropped my powder into the fireplace.

"Oh shi-!" Was all I was able to squeak out until the fire engulfed me and I felt the world warp around me.

**_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_ **

I collapsed onto the floor of a dusty, wooden floor. The books and handful of sickles in my bag spilled onto the floor. My curly, black, very short hair was now a jungle of dust bunnies as I coughed multiple times. This has happened to me twice before, once last year when shopping with my uncle Maro (I ended up in the Weasley's house), and the other time last month when trying to get to my house from Gringotts (I ended up in the Leaky Cauldron). I scooped my money and books back into my bags and tried to sit up, only for my head to hit something hard. The entire room was dark, so I had a hard time seeing anything beyond a meter from me. That was until I heard a door open from behind me, letting large amounts of light into the room. I turned around to see a big pair of feet slowly approach where I was.

The person bent down to take a look at me, and it was a man in around his mid thirties with an eye patch covering his left eye. A giant scar came down onto the eye and a cut in his eyebrow to show where the scar started. His breath smelled minty, and his skin was tanned gold. He had very long black hair that touched the floor when he crouched down. The man looked very familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly why. He had his wand drawn and pointed at me, causing me to scoot backwards and hit a wall.

"What are you doing here, buddy?" The man asked me, his accent being some odd version of French. He quickly put away his wand, maybe realizing that I was a kid. His voice was more positive and bubbly than I thought it would be.

"I-I was trying to get to Diagon Alley through the Leaky Cauldron with the r-rest of my family, but I t-tripped into the fireplace and n-now I'm lost." I sputtered out, clutching my bag in my arms. I was still a bit startled from what happened, and it would take a moment for me to get back into it. I also tend to stutter when I'm anxious, nervous, or scared, an odd habit I've had as far back as I can remember.

He gave me a warm smile and extended his hand. "Don't worry kid, you're not too far from them. Get up and I'll walk you to the Leaky Cauldron."

I took his hand and he pulled me from under where I was. I realized I was under a table, as it was right in front of the fireplace. The room I was in seemed to be some sort of bedroom, with a door leading to a hallway and a washroom. I followed him out of the room and followed him down a set of stairs. I immediately realized where I was. I recognized the rows of bookshelves and front reception in being the Obscurus Books Store. I've spent hours here reading the books they have, a lot of them being adventures and fairy tales.

The man that found me walked up to the old lady at the cash deposit, who currently labelling a pile of books. "Martha, I can take a quick break for a smoke outside?" He asked.

The lady sighed. "I thought you quit smoking?"

He leaned in and whispered something into his manager's ear. "Oh, then of course you can. Just make sure you don't wonder off."

"I won't!' He said to her as he took me outside, and as expected the place was completely packed. I walked beside him as we weaved through crowds of people. It was a short walk from Obscurus Books to the Leak Cauldron

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"Full or short?" He replied, pulling me towards him as a group of boys ran past us.

"Either one is fine." I said. He thought for a quick moment before taking a breath.

"Muscowequan Kisecawchuck Sweet." He told me. "But most people prefer to call me Musco. If you think that's hard then try to pronounce my son's name."

"You don't sound like your from around the UK. Am I wrong or not?" I said to him. With his odd French accent, I was curious.

"My family's from Quebec." He answered. "I moved here with my twins a couple years ago."

We turned the corner to see The Leaky Cauldron, and outside it I saw my mom and brothers outside. My mom was talking to a group of girls until Roldao grabbed her shoulder and pointed at me. She said something to the girls before running over to me and hugging me.

"There you are, Rosario!" She said to me as she combed my hair with her hand. "Where did you end up?"

Before I could answer, Musco cut me off. "Namazzi?"

My mom looked up to him and had this mixed look of shock and joy in her face. "Musco? What are you doing in England?"

He quirked his eyebrow. "Didn't you get my letter about moving a while back? After the whole... incident?"

She thought for a moment before realizing something. "Oh, yeah! Sorry I didn't write back. I've been so busy with work, the kids, my dad and grandmother-"

"Same here." He said, trying to stop my mom from going on a tangent. "Kane and Kass are a handful, plus me working full time now doesn't help either."

"Oh, where do you work?" She asked him.

Musco smiled. "Where your youngest ended up." He told my mom. "Obscurus Books."

"That makes sense..." She whispered to herself. "Rosario, why don't you wait over there with Roldao and Filipe while I talk with Musco."

I nodded and went over to my brothers. They were loitering around the entrance to Diagon Alley, and knowing how long my mom talks to her friends, we were going to be there for at least an hour. After a while of just sitting quietly on the hard ground (and waving at a handful of familiar faces like the Wealsey family), I had a question to ask my oldest brother.

"Roldao, Pip," I said, grabbing their attention. "what is Slytherin like?" Roldao was starting his third year tomorrow, and Pip was starting his second, so I thought they might have a good idea of their own house.

He sighed as he put away his book. "It's definitely an interesting house, full of blood-purists and a portion of decent wizards and witches."

Pip snorted at his comment. "Yeah, the house is a mixed bag with every new student. You don't know if you have one of those snobby rich kids or a the next Minister of Magic. Hardly anyone can stand me, honestly. My first year had me bombarded with "He's not a REAL Slytherin!" or something similar, it sucked for sure. Just cause I tolerate and generally respect other people's families, doesn't mean I'm not a proud Slytherin!"

See, my family has been pure-blood for Merlin knows how long. It wasn't really on purpose, it was just that we stemmed from very magical places. Brazil holds many talented and famous wizarding families that happened to be pure-blood and so does Uganda. We've never really taken the whole blood-purity thing seriously, even though the stereotype for pure-bloods is against that fact. My entire family has always taught me that unless a difference harms someone else, you sound respect it no matter what. Guess that's why the only family I visit regularly is the Weasley household (they're honestly really cool and I've been friends with them for years now).

"Slytherin isn't all bad though!" Roldao defended. "There ARE good people that respect others no matter what, and I'm sure you'll be a good fit if you do get sorted into Slytherin. Plus, we get to protect you if anything goes wrong."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much."

I noticed that our mom was coming towards us, with Musco walking back towards Obscurus Books. "Sorry I took so long, we have to get going."

"Mom, who was that?" I asked her.

"An old friend of mine that used to babysit you when you were little." She told me. That would explain why he looked familiar. I vaguely remembered the same man but with shorter hair playing with me in the park. "Now hurry up, you guys. We don't have a lot of time to kill." My mom rushed up to get up and we started checking off things from our shopping list.

I already had the clothes of the list (them being hand-me-downs, of course), so we first went to Flourish and Botts to acquire my school textbooks. I only needed to get some of the books, as we had a couple extra copies of the books lying around my great  _bibi's_  house. I started scanning through the multiple aisles of books until I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned around to see a brown-skinned girl with long, wavy, cocoa-coloured hair in what looked like average muggle clothing.

"S'cuse me," The girl said, she had a tame Scottish accent. "do you know where ya got that copy of..." She paused to read from her Hogwarts acceptance letter. "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander?"

I was caught a bit off guard. I'm not the best at social interaction. "U-um, I-I think I f-found it in the aisle closest to the c-cashier."

"I already checked there, and the entire shelves' blank." She explained. I quickly peeked out of the aisle to see if she was right, and she was. The entire thing was picked clean like vulture's prey. I was going to say something, but when I turned around to face her, I was greeted with one of the scariest men I've ever seen.

He must've been over 6'5, because he honestly looked like a tower to me. He had this soul piercing stare that would've made me scream if I wasn't in public. His skin was as white as the moon, which almost hurt my eyes having to look at him. He did bare a slight resemblance to the nice, gentle girl I was just talking to, but I use that lightly. The only thing that matched them was their hair, brown and wavy. I saw a woman behind him, crossing her arms while staring at me. She looked much more like the girl, matching her skin tone and soft facial features. I saw the girl peeking from behind what I'm guessing is her mom, giving me this "I'm so, so sorry" look. Meaning that the man in front of me was...

"What were you doing with my daughter?" The dad said as I felt a drip of sweat go down my temple. He had a strong traditional French accent. "Why were you talking to her?"

I cleared my throat as I tried to calm my nerves. "I was helping her find a book, sir." I really hope the "sir" would make him think I wasn't doing anything bad.

"That doesn't matter, why were you talking to MY DAUGHTER?" He almost yelled.

"Sir, I just answered that question." Was probably the worst response I could've given, which I said. I swear I could see the veins popping from his neck as I said that.

When I thought it couldn't get any worse, my mom turned the corner. "Rosario, how many books did you find- what's going on?"

I love my mom, but if there's one trait I could change about her is that she's a bit... protective. It's probably because I've done some really dumb stuff in the past, but for some reason she coddles me like I'm three months old. Pip complains about it all the time, and she always denies it. But it's pretty obvious she's always worried about me (which isn't always a good thing). I knew what would happen might turn into a full blown argument, so I quickly stepped out of range and stood beside the girl as her parents and my mom started arguing over what was basically nothing.

I sighed as I handed over my copy of Fantastic Beasts, she looked at me shocked as she took it from my hand.

"T-Think of it a-as my apology for this i-incident." I told her, I then extended my free hand for her to shake. "The n-name's Rosario D-Dourado, b-but call me Rio."

She turned to shake my hand. "Aisha Celestine Delacroix, pleasure meeting you under these odd circumstances."

I laughed as I started to feel less tense. "Odd indeed, fancy middle name there as well." I complimented her as we started to walk away from the argument and browse the store, both of us mutually and mentally agreeing that it would be easier to hear each other away from the racket.

"Thanks," She replied, brushing some hair behind her ear. "quirk of mine to say it along with the rest of my name"

I pulled out a potions book from the top shelf and added it to my basket. "In that case, I should reintroduce myself as Rosario Imani Dourado."

She rolled her eyes, but I still managed to make her smile. She tried to reach the top shelf for the same book (as she seemed to be a first year like me), but could seem to grab it no matter how far jumped up. Aisha was frankly tiny compared to me, barely around 5'0 to my 5'7, so I grabbed a copy for her and put it in her shopping basket.

"What a gentleman." Aisha complimented me.

I laughed as I scratched the back of my neck. "Gentlewoman would also work." I told her.

She got the message and started apologizing profusely. I told her it was fine as we continued shopping for our school books (and me grabbing things off the top shelf). Aisha talked non-stop about ourselves and cracked bad puns along the way. Her parents are graduates of muggle universites, her dad being a Paris native and her mom being all the from Cairo, Egypt. Her dad is a lawyer and her mom is a doctor, which she said made them busy all the time. Aisha talked a lot about her rottweiler named Boomer and how he was probably her best friend. She also lives up in Glasgow, but her family is constantly moving.

"What about you, Rio?" She asked, as I was quiet for most of the time. "What's your family like?"

I thought for second, trying to find out where to start. "Well, I have two older brothers that are in Hogwarts already. My mom, who works for the Daily Prophet, a wizard newspaper. My grandfather, who's a retired Auror Officer. Then there's my great grandmother, who's a retired Hogwarts Professor. We have multiple pets, mostly owls, but we do have one cat."

Aisha was about to say something until I felt someone grab my shoulder. I turned around and saw my mom. "C'mon Rosario," She said to me. "we're leaving." Before I could vocally say goodbye, my mom dragged me out of the front door. All I was able to do was wave through the window, which made Aisha laugh.

We met up with my brothers and continued buying things from our list (as my mom complained about Aisha's parents). Around 3pm, I was carrying a heavy cauldron full of all the books, tools, and extras I needed for my first year of Hogwarts.

All except one, which is the all important wand.

We approached the doorstep of Ollivanders, and as soon as I opened that door my mom pulled me down as a flash of light raced above me. When I had the chance to look inside, I saw my cousin Rhys holding a wand, along with my Uncle Maro and Uncle Cisco. Uncle Maro was visibly startled, while Cisco was silently chuckling.

Rhys has always been the odd one out of the family. Not in a "he's really weird" way, but in "he's the only one in our family that's adopted way" (not that it's a bad thing, but it does make him different). My Uncle Maro divorced my step-aunt about five years ago, and she and my other cousin lives in the US. Uncle Maro now lives with Uncle Cisco. Uncle Cisco adopted Rhys when he was four, before they started living with eachother. We know very little about his original parents. We know one was from Wales and the other was from Armenia, one of them was a wizard, and his original father's surname was Gallagher (which he prefers to use over Dourado, we don't judge him on the decision). Apparently they were murdered, but we don't know by who or why. Besides the tragic backstory, he's probably the sweetest boy you'll ever meet. His messy, dirt blonde hair, and his skinny figure is hard to miss if he's at a family reunion. His skin was noticeably paler than the rest of us, but still tanned to an olive complexion. He was the only one with blue eyes as well, them being fairly bright and pale like him.

"Hey Rhys!" My oldest brother waves at my cousin. He was about to wave back before Ollivander took the wand he was holding from his hand. My mom pushed me in and my brothers followed suit. I set my things down on a table nearby and went to go hug my uncles.

"You here to get your first wand?" Uncle Cisco asked me, I nodded. "Well, make sure your nerves don't get to you, the wands can smell fear."

I rolled my eyes as my Uncle Maro flicked his boyfriend at the side of his head. " _Elimínalo_ , Francisco.  _Es la primera vez que usa una varita, no la asustes_." Cisco has been teaching Maro how to speak Spanish for awhile, which is kind of easy because Portuguese and Spanish are somewhat similar. Pip started talk with Cisco, along with Roldao.

"How long has Rhys been trying out wands?" I asked Uncle Maro.

He checked his watch. "About half an hour, but I've seen longer."

Ollivander came back with another wand. "Okay Rhys, try out this one." He took the wand out of the box and handed it to my cousin. "This one is made of alder wood, has a unicorn hair core, and is 10 inches."

Rhys did a quick flick with the wand, and nothing shot out of it. "It feels comfortable." Rhys told Ollivander. "It doesn't kick-back or anything."

The wandmaker smiled. "Then we have our match. Adelmar, come to the till and you can pay for your wand."

Uncle Maro walked over to the counters and started sifting through his pockets. Cisco started examining his son's new wand, looking closely at the wood and looking for any cracks.

"I wouldn't advise trying any spells, sir." Ollivander said to my uncle. "Alder wood tends to be very loyal to its first owner, and with the combination on unicorn hair, it's taken to a more extreme length."

Cisco quickly handed back the wand to Rhys. Maro paid Ollivander and before they left, I agreed with Rhys that I would sit with him on the Hogwarts Express tomorrow.

"And you must be youngest of Namazzi's, Rosario," Ollivander said to me. "am I correct?" I nodded. He adjusted his glasses to take a better look at me. "Your mother had quite a unique wand, I wonder what your's will be."

He then ran off into the shelves behind the counter, and I waited on the other side of it for him. He came back minute later with a box containing an average sized wand with a rather dark pigment. "Ebony wood, unicorn hair core, and 12 1/2 inches." He said to me as he handed me the wand. I did a motion I frequently saw my mom do with her wand, and a sudden spark of lightning came from the tip, which scared me so much I ended up dropping the wand. I quickly picked it back up and Ollivander took it from me. He muttered things under his breath to himself as he ran to the back once again.

I don't know how long I was there trying wands, but I looked at the clock and it read 4:02 when I was about twenty four wands in. A lot of them were combinations my mom and brothers had when they tried out for wands. About halfway through I actually got a black-eye from trying one of the wands after being thrown back into the wall face-first. All of the wands wanted to kill me, I swear. Then I hit the forty first wand.

"Cypress wood, phoenix feather core, 14 inches." He handed it to me. I did a quick flick of my wrist, bracing for any damage it might do to me or others. But everything was silent, and I felt this odd, yet warm feeling travel up my and into my heart. I flicked the wand again. and it didn't fight back or try to do something dumb.

Ollivander's eyebrow quirked up. "Powerful combination for such a young wizard, but it seems to answer to you. Namazzi, we have our winner." My mom went up to the till and took out her wallet to pay for my new wand. "You know, Namazzi, your kids always seem to have powerful and loyal combinations. Roldao has his ash wood and dragon heartstring, while Filipe's wand was the one that surprised me the most with the mix of the rare elder wood and loyal unicorn hair. Then of course your daughter's new wand."

My mom laughed. "I don't know, maybe they'll be as good as my grandmother one day."

Ollivander smiled warmly. "Never underestimate the power of children."

We bid the wandmaker goodbye as we left the shop, going home to get ready for the big day.

**~TO BE CONTINUED~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: If you are a native Spanish or Portuguese speakers (or any other language I plan to use), please DM me if you see any mistakes with translations I've made. Also to everyone else, you can DM me if you see any grammar or spelling mistakes/errors. I'm a busy person, so every little bit helps!


	3. Hogwarts Express

** 1st of September, 1991 - 10:26am at King's Cross Station **

I pushed my trolley full of clothes and school supplies through the station, weaving through the mix of Muggles and wizards. That morning, I had woken up by Pip's half-kitten, half-Kneazle, Athena, pawing at my face for me to wake up. After I realized that I woke up an hour late with none of my stuff packed (as I skateboarded that entire evening at the nearest park when I got home from Diagon Alley), I panicked. I was such in a hurry, I ended up falling down the stairs and landing on my arse. So, in other words, I'm not having the best day.

"Do you wonder if a Muggle has ever seen a wizard go through the wall?" I ask Roldao, who was pushing his trolley beside me.

Roldao shakes his head. "There are multiple magical charms on the gate, plus I doubt a muggle would have the guts to tell the doc they saw someone run into a wall and disappear."

Pip was in front of us pushing his trolley with mum behind him. His kitten, who I mentioned before, is still small enough to ride in the hood of his jumper. Athena meowed at me as she licked her black paws. When my mom asked if I wanted a pet for my first year, I declined because I thought we already had enough pets. As we approached the gate to Platform 9 & 3/4, I noticed a girl around my age yelling at her parents as she was surrounded by multiple trolleys full of luggage. She was wearing fancy and expensive clothes, and had a short black bob for her hair. Her skin was quite pale, but she had a small amount of freckles on her cheeks.

"But Daddy," She yelled him her father. "you said I could bring my broom!"

He sighed as he bent down to his daughter's level. "Sweetheart, first years aren't permitted to bring brooms."

She started whining about the rule, saying it was somehow unfair as they continued bickering in public. Pip was able to move around them as he entered through the portal first. Roldao was next, and that left me and my mom. I always was anxious of going through the portal, the thought of it just randomly closing and me slamming into the wall was pretty strong in my mind.

"Just relax, Rosario." My mom whispered while rubbing my shoulder. I took a deep breath before running as fast as I could towards the portal. I closed eyes when I was about a meter away from the wall and I felt the air around me change. The air went from clean and windy, to smoky and stuffy. I opened my eyes and I was greeted with Platform 9 & 3/4. I moved around the area near the entrance to look for my brothers (who probably already went to go find their friends), but as I was, I accidentally rammed my trolley into another person's trolley, causing all of their belongings to spill onto the ground.

"I'm so sorry!" I said as I immediately ran to do help him put his things back onto his trolley. When I finished helping, I finally got to get a look of him. He was very short, being about less than 5'0. His hair was this black, wavy mess on his head, like he hasn't brushed his hair in years. His skin was a deep brown, and his eyes seemed to big for his head. He had a noticeable tooth gap on one side of his left canine, which left a empty hole in the wide smile he gave me. He already was in his Hogwarts uniform, with his yellow and black tie signifying that he's a Hufflepuff.

"It's alright!" He said. He had a thick British-Indian accent. "You look a bit familiar..." He scratched the back of his neck, trying to think of something, or someone.

"MJ!" I heard a familiar voice scream and the next thing I saw was the boy being picked up into a death hug by Pip, who seemingly came out of nowhere. I tried to hide my laugh, but failed when I saw the look on my mom's face as she approached from behind the two.

"Philipe!" My mom yelled at my brother. Pip was so startled that he dropped his friend onto the ground. He quickly helped him up off the ground and brushed off his trousers. My mom flicked Pip on the side of his head. "Don't scare him like that! You know he's a bit skittish."

Pip rubbed the side of his head. "Sorry, sorry..." He muttered.

"Um, I don't think we've met." My brother's friend said to me, trying to soothe the awkward moment. "I'm Murad Joshi, you must be Rio, yes?" I nodded in agreement. "Your brother's told me so much about you."

My brain finally processed who he was, which honestly took long enough. Murad, or MJ, is Pip's best friend. Pip told me that they met on the Hogwarts Express after Athena ran away from him, and MJ helped him catch the kitten. Pip gets bullied a bunch by the older Slytherins, and MJ helps him feel better. MJ gets bullied as well according to Pip, so they both help each other out. The people that bully them get detention and such, but they still tease and make fun of my brother and his friend. Bit of a shame that Pip and MJ are in different houses, but MJ allows Pip to stay in the Hufflepuff common room if the other Slytherins were bullying him too much for him to handle. Thankfully, none of the other Hufflepuffs have a problem with it, and help out Pip as well. The other kids did back him up though, like the Palladinos and Weasleys, but they didn't do much against they bullies.

One time, Pip was jinxed by a seventh year so hard that he passed out. The boy cast the spell wrong and it was almost fatal. The spell cut so deep, that it hit a bone (he now has a permanent scar across his back because of it). The bullies did get punished, but the teachers never found out that he was staying in the Hufflepuff common room because of them. I never knew why they started bullying him, he doesn't talk about it often. MJ came to visit us during the winter break (his family doesn't celebrate Christmas, but he wanted to be around for the dinner), but I was hit with an awful fever that week and I barely left my room.

"Yeah, Pip talked about you non-stop during the summer break." I told him. I then noticed a scar on the side of his neck when he turned his head to face Pip, dangerously close to his throat.  the more he turned his head, the more bigger I saw it was. It started from his temple and curved down his jawline before it stopped right before his noticeable vein in his neck. It was quite deep as well, as it was definitely not cut recently, but was still extremely visible. I decided not to say anything about it as we walked around the station with our trolleys, talking about the upcoming year. We loaded our luggage onto the train, but decided to walk around more for the time being.

I learned a bit about MJ when we were talking. His parents come from a village near New Dehli, but moved here to open an Indian muggle restaurant in Southall. Both his parents are muggles, and he has to get all of his school supplies by himself. He had to learn about the wizard to muggle money exchange himself so he could even try to get anything in Diagon Alley. He got help from people in the Leaky Cauldron to even understand wizard culture. His parents are just too busy to help him, which is understandable. He has a little owl named Anu (who he let sit on his shoulder while we were walking around).

I stopped Musco in the crowd and waved at him. My mom then started a long conversation with him, and it took me awhile to notice the girl hiding behind him. Her skin was as pale as a pearl, with freckles splattered across her cheeks, which were glowing a rosy pink. She had a giant birthmark on her left cheek that almost looked like Italy if you squinted at it. Her hair reminded me of the marigolds my grandma has in her dining room, which made it seem like she had a waterfall of flower petals for hair. She seemed shy and nervous, as she was clutching around the arm of Musco.

"Who's the little one behind you?" My mom asked Musco.

He laughed as he gently pulled the girl to the front of him. "This young lady is Robyn Hood, my daughter."'

"Robin Hood?" MJ piped up. "Like from the fairy tale?"

Musco scratched the back of his neck. "I don't know much about muggle stories-"

The girl cut him off. "Sort of, my name is spelled with a y instead of an i though." Robyn said at almost a whisper. She didn't have a British accent, but a heavy American accent. It was a bit hard to tell with her talking so quietly, but it was definitely there. "I own a copy of the Disney movie at my house..."

I noticed my mom giving Musco a weird look, like something was wrong. But she didn't seem to want to egg him on it. Robyn seemed quite shy by nature, she simply nodded or shook her head at most of the questions before she went onto the train with her bag of books and her luggage. I learned through Musco that it was her first year going to Hogwarts and she recently moved in with her. He wouldn't give anymore information after, and agreed on a date to talk with my mother later. We parted ways as he went to go find his daughter.

The clock read 10:55, quite close to the departure. Roldao, MJ, and Pip hugged my mom goodbye, which left only me. I hugged her tight, and when we pulled apart, she combed my hair back with her hand and placed a kiss on my forehead. I have short hair, but my curly bangs go past my eye brows because I forgot to get it cut last month.

"Now, don't do anything too stupid your first year." She told me, then ruffling my hair. "You got a short fuse like your dad, don't let anyone use it against you."

I quirked one of my eyebrows up. "How do I have anger issues? I completely level-headed."

My mom rolled her yes. "Stubborn like him too."

"Mom, what was dad like?" I asked her out of the blue. I almost never ask her about dad, mostly because I've already heard so much about him through Uncle Maro, Uncle Cisco,  _Avó_  Benedita, and other family members. I know he's this big shot war hero from the First Wizarding War and fought against You-Know-Who. Ambitious yet selfless have been the only words that most people would use to describe him. When I ask mom about him, it usually ends up with her going silent and telling me to "not today".

She sighed as she rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, you should know all about him, you're just like him. I can't really describe him than anything but that, he's just like you."

"But mom, what was he REALLY like?" I pressed.

She smiled at me. "That's a conversation for another time. For now, you have a train to catch."

I hugged her one last time, then ran onto the train. I quickly found the nearest window on my mom's side, and when the train starting leaving the station, I waved goodbye to her and she waved back. I saw a small tear roll down her cheek before smoke engulfed my sight of her. After that, I sighed and started walking around to look for a open compartment.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

I figured that Pip and Roldao already found compartments with people. Pip was probably sitting with MJ and Roldao with his motley crew of popular and/or athletic Gryffindors (Fred and George Weasley, Lee Jordan, etc). Wondering through the train, I noticed a couple of familiar faces. I saw Rhys walking around with a boy. He told me that he was helping him find his pet toad call Trevor, so he'll just find me after. I spotted Ron in a compartment with a boy who had round glasses and clothes much too big for him, most likely meeting each other for the first time. I said hi to both of them then continued on my way.

I walked into a different compartment more to the back of the train, and spotted the girl I saw earlier that was bickering with her parents. She was sitting in the small room with two rather large boys, a boy who almost looked like Roldao, and one small, pale, and blonde boy. The pale boy's hair was slicked back with what looked a hair gel of some sort, making his forehead seem shiner than I would expect from someone.

"Who are you?" The blonde boy asked me before I could ask if there was room for one more. From his voice alone, I already knew he was rich.

"Um, my n-name's Rosario D-Dourado." I introduced myself. "And y-yours is?"

The dark-skinned boy next to him whispered into his ear. He looked back at him and clearly mouthed "Really?" with a impressed expression at him, and the other boy nodded.

The pale boy extended his hand for me to shake. "My name's Draco Malfoy, you may know my father Lucius Malfoy. The one next to me is Blaise, the two boys across from me are Crabbe and Goyle, and the girl is Pansy. You are permitted to sit with us if you find us to your liking."

I shook his hand, maybe the rich kids club aren't complete jerks. I was about to walk in, before I felt someone brush against my shoulder. I turned to look and it was the girl I met yesterday at Diagon Alley, Aisha.

"Got room for one more?" She asked the rich kids.

"Name?" Draco asked her swiftly.

"Not really a way to greet someone, isn't it?" She said to them. "Aisha Celestine Delacroix."

Draco looked at him friends, and they all seemed to shake their heads. Sort of saying "We don't know her, and we don't want her here" not-so-subtly. "I'm sorry, but we're full." Draco told Aisha.

"Get out of here, mud-blood!" Crabbe suddenly shouted at Aisha, like something randomly snapped in him.

At that point, I was officially ticked off. Aisha must've not known what that word means around here in the wizarding world. So, someone had to stand up for her.

"Shut the fuck up, you daft knobhead!"

And with that, the two of us were pushed out of the compartment, with the door slamming loud enough for the driver to hear.

"What does that mean to warrant that type of language?" Aisha then asked me while a couple of people gave me dirty looks as they passed by us.

I sighed as I tried to hide how much I was sweating from nervousness. "It's like the m-muggle n-word, only t-towards people who a-are muggle-borns."

She immediately seemed concerned. "Am I a muggle-born?" She asked me.

"Do you know anyone in your family before you that was a witch or wizard?" I asked and she shook her head to signal no. "Then yes, you are."

She took a deep breath. "Not the first time I've been called a slur." Aisha muttered. "C'mon, we have to find a compartment."

The short girl quickly grabbed my hand and dragged me down the walkway, looking through compartments and asking people if there was room. We avoided the compartments with older kids in them, just so we wouldn't get insulted again.

We soon found an empty compartment, and set down our carry-ons in the correct places and finally took time to relax.

"So about all this weird wizarding stuff," She said, waking me up from my dozy state. "Is this blood thing important?"

I tried to think of a way to describe it to her. I was the only one in our family that understands most muggle history, as in my spare time I read books at the nearby muggle library. I'm still working on pop culture though, since it always changes. I explained the whole wizarding blood thing to her, and every term that I could think of.

"So you're a pure-blood because everyone one in your family has coincidentally or on purposely had children with other pure-bloods? But since pure-blood wizards are a very small minority in the wizard community wouldn't that mean there would have to be some amount of incest to make sure you're a pure-blood?"

 _"Good Merlin, she's observant."_  was the first thing I thought when she finished her question. Next was along the lines of  _"Did she even take a breath when she said that?"_ , but I had to answer sooner or later.

"Well, my family's pretty all over the map so we thankfully haven't run into that." I first told her, just to make sure she knew that my parents weren't first cousins or anything. "But some extremist pure-blood families in the British Isles resort to that, like close cousins or sometimes siblings. But more non-extreme but still blood-purist families might accidentally have kids with their third or fourth cousins. Mostly because of how intertwined the families are at this point."

"Ew." She muttered before sticking out her tongue in disgust.

"Yeah..." I sighed out. "it gets more gross the more you think about it, so I tend not to."

"Good advice." Aisha agreed.

After a couple of seconds, we heard a loud  _THUNK_  against our compartment door. I quickly got up and opened the door to see what happened, only for someone fall on top of me, back first, causing both of us to fall over. The person wouldn't get up, and their body laid limp against me. I pushed them off with all my strength and sat up. This person must be some athlete or something, because he was extremely heavy. I looked outside the compartment, and I saw Robyn standing their with her book clutched in her hands, and a bit shaken. She was in her school robes already, and had a big blue and bronze scarf, in the Ravenclaw colours. I wondered how she got it, as she wasn't even sorted yet. It covered half of her face, and was certainly meant for someone larger than her. I looked over to the person who fell on me, I didn't seem to recognize him.

The boy looked around the same age as my oldest brother, so around fourteen. His skin reminded me almost of Nutella (one of my favourite muggle foods), but maybe a little bit lighter. His hair was a curly, caramel mess after falling over, but more of the stylish messy hair you see on celebrities. He had painfully white teeth, that hurt my eyes the longer I looked at them. He was in his school uniform already, but very roughly done with his tie only halfway put on and his sweater tied around his waist. His tie was lined with yellow and black, showing that he was in Hufflepuff. He had an extremely stocky, huge, and muscly build for how old I thought he was. I couldn't deny he was rather attractive, but not really my type to be honest.

I looked back at Robyn. She seemed to be a bit shocked and in her own world. "You alright, love?" I asked her.

The orange-haired girl snapped out of her daze. "I didn't mean to hit him!"

That was probably that loudest I've heard her speak so far. "You what?" Aisha said.

Robyn cheeks turned a bright pink. "I was walking down the corridor, and then he just jumped right in front of me! He startled me so much, my first thought was to hit whatever was there."

I heard the boy groan from the ground. Realizing he was still there, I dragged him up onto the seat next to Aisha and finally noticed the large bruise forming on his right cheek.

"Did you hit him with your book?" I asked Robyn, but the boy that was hit finally starting talking.

"She sure did," He told me and Aisha. "her swing's quite strong, you could be a decent beater, Freckles."

Robyn blushed harder than before. "Are you okay?" She asked the boy.

"Oh, I'm fine!" He tried to stand up, but immediately fell forward. I was able to catch him in time and set him back down into his seat. After a breath he said "On second thought, I might need a second or two. I'm sure my friends won't mind."

Robyn took a seat next to the boy. "I'm so sorry about this!" She said to him. "What's your name?"

The boy flashed a bright and toothy grin at us. "Pyrrhus Tonks at your service!" He chimed before taking Robyn's hand and shaking it vigorously. He looked at the rest of us. "What are your names?"

Aisha cleared her throat. "Aisha Celestine Delacroix!"

Robyn moved her scarf from her face, revealing the rest of the freckles that dotted her face. "I'm Robyn Hood..." She quietly told Pyrrhus.

"I'm Rosario Dourado, but please call me Rio." I told him.

He seemed to perk up. "Dourado? Do you know Roldao Dourado?"

I nodded. "He's my older brother."

Pyrrhus smiled. "I'm friends with him, he's a bloody good Chaser for the Slytherin team. Shame he has to deal with Marcus Flint. Even though he's only played on their team for a year, I'd make him captain over him any day."

I chuckled. "I agree, he complained all summer about Flint and his dangerous tactics. Something about breaking the Ravenclaw Keeper's leg?"

Pyrrhus frowned at the memory. "He broke more than a leg, I was there to see it. Quinn took a pretty nasty fall after he fell off his broom from the initial blow. He first broke his leg on the goal post, but he cracked three of his ribs and absolutely shattered his shoulder and elbow. He was out for the entire season for both those injuries and the extreme concussion he got."

The curly haired boy stood up and was about to leave the compartment before he turned around and leaned against the door. Pyrrhus flashed a toothy grin at us and ran his hand through his hair. "I should get going, need to talk about birthday plans with Cedric, Cho, and my sister. It was pleasure to meet you three!" He said. "Guessing you lot are first years, right?" We all nodded. "Well, here's a tip. Take your Flying classes seriously, never know when you need to hop on a broom."

And with that, he waved goodbye and walked out of our compartment (though his footing was slightly off). I shut the door and finally was able to relax for a couple of minutes. Robyn sat beside Aisha, silently reading a book as me and Aisha talked about our lives. Aisha talked on and on about the things she liked doing, like playing muggle video games, listening to muggle music, and a bunch of other muggle-ish things as well (I may know somethings, but what she was saying was basically a foreign language). She wanted to get piercings for her twelfth birthday, and one day get a tattoo even if her parents didn't approve. I also found out that she skateboarded as well, and we both agreed to skateboarding around Hogwarts at least once together.

Robyn, on the other hand, was a general mystery to me, so I wanted to ask about who she was. But she seemed so shy and anxious, that I didn't want to scare her or make her feel uncomfortable. I used to be quite quiet like her, mostly because of my on and off stutter when I get nervous. I gained more confidence as it's faded away with vocal practices I do that I've learned from books. Aisha seemed to be the curious type, so she kept on asking Robyn questions.

"Your name's Robyn, right?" Aisha asked her. She was a bit startled from the sudden question, but eventually nodded. "You have a weird accent, where ya from?"

"Detroit..." She muttered.

"So you ARE an American! Why did'ya move across the pond? Aisha asked Robyn.

Robyn sighed. "Stuff..."

Aisha pressed Robyn about who she was for what seemed like and entirety. But she barely got any information about her. The freckled girl did say a couple things about herself though. Robyn's mom was a nurse and she didn't even know she was a wizard until about a year ago. She talked about her dad and how she came to live with him after "something happened". Robyn also said that her favourite food is glazed doughnuts for some reason, don't remember why though, I was only half listening. Anything more than that was a complete mystery to us. Robyn returned to reading her book/weapon of mass destruction while Aisha ranted out a bunch of her thoughts to me.

At this point I opened my book bag and started sifting through the small collection of things I brought with me to Hogwarts, only partially listening to Aisha. My bag was mostly filled with books, most of them centred around muggle history or just random fiction books. My journal and sketch book, along with a case with quills and ink in it (and some pencils I picked up from a bargain store near the London Eye). Hopefully I get to add some more drawings to my book, I barely have been able to draw anything in the last month. Other than that, I had my notes journal, everything else I had was in my luggage. I took out my sketch book and started looking through some of my unfinished sketches.

Before I could even decide which one to work on, someone opened the compartment door and tackled me off my seat and onto the ground. The person is much more stronger than me because they were able to pin me in a hug on the ground.

The person was speaking rapidly in Italian, but I could pick out my name in a couple of the sentences. I immediately knew who they were.

"A-Amore," I gasped out, trying to breathe while a person was on top of me. "what did I say about personal space?"

With that, he quickly got off of me. " _Scusa scusa,_ " Amore said while helping me up. "it's just that I haven't seen you in three months, Rio! Rome was so boring, but the wedding was amazing!"

Amore Archangelo Palladino is and has always been my best friend. He's the youngest in the huge Palladino family, a pure-blood family originally from Italy. His father, Shane, is a muggle-born from Beijing, but he moved to England when he was a kid. The Palladino name comes from his mom, Angela. Amore and his five older siblings are half-bloods that were born in Rome, but moved to England when the his oldest brother got a Hogwarts acceptance letter out of nowhere. Everyone was confused, and his dad even had to meet with Dumbledore himself to ask him about it, but to no avail. They decided to go with it and moved here. It was a score for me though, because if he didn't move here then I would have been even more lonely than I am now.

"How do you like the new hair colour, Rio?" He asked me, pointing at his new pastel purple hair. "I wanted to go for something crazy, you know?"

Well, Amore and his father are some of the only metamorphmagi in the world. It's honestly the coolest thing ever because pranks become way more easier when one of you can change appearance at will. It's a bit tricky to deal with though. When someone asks you what you best friend looks like and you can only just shrug for the time being, it becomes almost a chore to find out what he looks like that day. I mean, he can change ANYTHING about himself at will, and I mean anything. One time, he scared the soul out of me by turning into my mom when we were hanging out past our curfew.

Thankfully, he keeps the important things about himself the same unless he absolutely has to or for a joke. His hair colour is usually a shade of medium brown and the style of it reminding me of the erratic pattern of barbed wire, short and curly. His irises right now are hazel, but they tend to get redder when he is mad. He always has an athletic and lean build because of his Quidditch background. His skin colour is almost always tanned, as he visits Italy one to three times a year for at least a month. Being his friend for so long, you start noticing small differences from day to day. Right now, I notice that his jawline seemed more defined than usual, and his shoulder were more broad. Either he's been working out, or he's trying to impress someone.

As Amore helped me pick up my books, I got a sudden reminder that other people were in the compartment.

"Care to introduce yourself?" Aisha grumbled. She seemed miffed because of Amore's grand and disruptive entrance.

Amore quickly got up and extended his hand for Aisha to shake. "I'm Amore, Amore Palladino!" He chirped. "Nice to meet you!"

Aisha reluctantly shook his hand. "Aisha Celestine Delacroix." She blandly stated, as if she was extremely unenthused about the mere idea of Amore's existence. Aisha quickly let go of his hand, and when he wasn't looking she wiped it on her jacket. I snickered as I stuffed all my things back into my bag and sat back down. Amore plopped down next to me and immediately leaned against me back first, seeming to forget what I told him before.

I looked over to Robyn, who was keeping her nose buried in her book as she tried to avoid eye contact with my friend, but someone else's social anxiety doesn't stop Amore from starting a conversation.

"What's your name?" He asked, startling Robyn.

She slightly lowered her book so you could see the top of her nose and muttered "I'm Robyn Hood, nice to meet you..." then quickly moving her book back.

Amore raised an eyebrow in confusion but quickly shrugged it off and went on a long rant about his uncle's wedding. His uncle is Lamberto Palladino, the world class Italian Quidditch Seeker who plays on the Tutshill Tornados. He's one of the richest and well-known wizards in Europe, which puts them in the same boat as the Malfoys and the Minster for Magic. His first wife, Roxanne, died from a complication during the birth of Amore's cousin, Clementine, which left him devastated for along time. But I heard he's doing much better from the help of his new wife, Delia.

Amore kicked his feet up and rested them on my lap. "The wedding was amazing, except for the music, but besides that it was great!"

I rolled my eyes as I pinched him behind his knee, causing him to recoil his leg in pain. "Sounds like you had a blast, Amore." I told him. "While you were off being a rich boy, I had spent the entire summer dealing with my mom trying to date again, and failing miserably."

My mom started looking around her workplace for a boyfriend this summer, but she quickly realized that many of the men working their were either creeps or had an ego the size of Mount Fiji. Amore rubbed the pinch as he sighed. "Sounds like that was fun... what house do you think you'll get into." He said, changing the subject.

I shrugged. "Considering my family, probably Slytherin." I admitted, pulling out my sketchbook and flipping through the pages, looking for things to finish.

Amore sighed. "Same here,  _mia amica_. I'm not smart enough to be in Ravenclaw like some of my siblings, so I guess I just go where most of us pure-bloods somehow end up." He took off his backpack and opened it, looking through it to take out a ham and mustard sandwich. After unwrapping it and taking a healthy bite out of it, he spoke with his mouth open. "Who knows, maybe we'll be the odd ones out."

I caught Aisha giving him a grossed out look before going back to looking out the window. I found an unfinished drawing of a hippogriff I had and continued where I left off. "Don't get your hopes up, Amore." I told him. "Slytherin is basically our fate at this point."

Robyn slowly closed her book and set it down on her lap. "What do the house represent anyways?" She quietly asked us.

Amore swallowed his food. "Gryffindor is for the brave and chivalrous, Ravenclaw is for the intelligent and wise, Hufflepuff for the loyal and hardworking, and Slytherin is for the ambitious and cunning." He quickly explained.

"But what do you guys mean by pure-bloods being "doomed" to Slytherin?" Aisha asked while she adjusted her sleeves.

Amore looked at me to explain, as she had his mouth full of ham at the moment. "The houses were named after the founders of Hogwarts," I said, not looking up from what I was drawing. "Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin."

"And?" Aisha said.

I continued. "Salazar Slytherin wanted Hogwarts to be a pure-blood only school, thinking that half-bloods and muggle-borns were inferior to the rest of the wizarding world. Since many other pure-blood families share the same mindset and traits, many pure-blood families end up in Slytherin for generations, so much that it becomes a tradition or at some points a requirement for certain families. Both me and Amore's family have histories of people being sorted into Slytherin, not because we're arseholes-"

"Watch your profanity..." I heard Robyn whisper.

"But because some people in our family trees are those type of dickwads." I finished explaining. I heard Robyn mumble something about soap in my mouth as Aisha nodded in understanding.

After that, me, Aisha, and Amore spent the ride talking about our summers, with Robyn once and awhile piping into the conversation. Amore bought the four of us treats from the trolley, and I got to introduce Rhys to the others when walked by asking us if we saw a boy's pet toad. He was walking with a girl who was also helping, but she seemed more straight-forward and blunt. Around the end of the trip, we all took turns changing into our school robes. I tiredly looked out the window in anticipation of what was to come at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

**~TO BE CONTINUED~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the long wait on this one! I went through some tough times and I had to deal with that before I finished this chapter, hope you understand!


	4. Running Late

**~~~~~~~~~~~~**

"Hey moron, wake up." were the words that greeted me as I opened my eyes. I thought that maybe the harsh words would be enough, but I was soon mistaken.

" **WAKE UP SLEEPYHEAD!** " A girl yelled at me right into my ear.

"W-Wah?!" I blurted out in surprise. I then proceeded to embarrassingly fall out of my chair and onto the ground, landing face first into the couch across from me, then hitting the open wooden cabinet nose first. I cursed loudly as I heard and felt a loud cracking sound in my head. I curled up in pain on the floor as the girl stood above me.

"Idiot..." I heard the girl mutter. "C'mon, get up and I'll help you." I felt an arm wrap around my torso in an attempt to pull my body upwards with great effort, but to no avail. I slowly get up and quickly sit down to avoid passing out. I tasted blood and my hand and my robe was covered with it. Thankfully, the robe was black so it wasn't as noticeable, but there was a big blood stain on my white dress shirt underneath. It made me look like I just brutally murdered someone,

The girl got on one knee in front of me. "Move your hand." She told me, and I listened. She was eye to eye with me, so I finally got a look at what her appearance was. She was a short girl with kinky hair styled into two large, pom-pom like buns. She almost looked like the pictures my great  _bibi_  showed me of my mom when she was a kid. The major difference that I saw was the blotches of discoloured skin she had peppering her body. Her natural skin colour was a medium-light coco, but the blotches were warm and creamy. There was a fairly large mark on her left cheek, that it's shape oddly reminded me of Cuba, but it was slightly cut off by her oversized, thick-framed glasses. I've never seen anything like it, but it actually seemed to compliment the rest of her body. I noticed that she was alarmingly skinny, but you couldn't tell through her baggy school robe. She raised her hands around my nose, and I saw more of the blotches, but also that she was missing half of both her right ring finger and right pinkie.

I wanted to ask her about it, but she cut me off with a snarky comment. "Look at you, breaking your nose from falling over. You should try slapstick comedy at this point." She then hovered her hand right above my nose bridge.

"This is going to hurt and I don't really care." Was the last thing she said before she grabbed the broken part of my nose and snapped it back into place. I swore at the top of my lungs as a spike of extreme pain before a slight numbing. I looked up and I saw the girl handing me a towel that she took out of her backpack. "You're welcome." She said.

I took the towel and started wiping off the blood from my face, while trying to stop the copious amounts of blood spewing out of my nose. I looked around to see that Amore, Aisha, and Robyn already had left, and it felt like everyone else on the train was off besides me and the girl.

"W-Where is e-everyone?" I asked her.

She took out a handkerchief from her pocket as she wiped my blood off her hands, then using it to wipe off the blood from my neck. "We're at Hogwarts already." She told me. "Your friends left, two of them arguing about dipping sauce and the other nose deep in a book. They thought you were behind them I guess. After they left, I sat beside you as you slept, putting your things in your bag and waiting for you to wake up."

I started wiping off my shirt. "H-How long was I o-out?"

She rolled up her sleeve to check her watch. "It's been around twenty minutes since everyone left the train. We should probably get going."

I was too deep in shock to argue, or explain that her watching me was creepy, or ask why she didn't wake me up earlier, so I just nodded and got up. I grabbed my bag as we left the compartment and walked to the exit. I found some tissues and used it to stuff my nose. It was awkwardly quiet as we left the train and dropped off our bags to be sent to our dorms. As we followed the lit trail towards the boats, I realized I never caught her name.

"I'm Rosario D-Dourado, but everyone calls m-me Rio." I tell her as we walk side by side towards the boats.

The girl quirked her eyebrow. "I didn't ask."

Her sarcasm and coldness caught me off guard. Weird that someone so rude would be nice enough to pack my things for me as I slept, then waking me up so I didn't get stuck on the train.

Before I could comment on anything, the girl sighed. "I'm Connie Bunker. Sorry I'm a bit of a smartass right now. I'm havin' a bad day." She told me. 

I decide to retort with my own snarky comment. "Are you still as s-sarcastic when you're having a g-good day?"

Connie snickered. "To be honest, yeah, but I'm not as harsh as I was back in the train. My older brother spilled an entire bottle of ice cold water in my hair while on the train, while saying the horrendous pun of "you need to cool down" while doing it."

I shrugged. "I don't mind, you didn't really insult me so it didn't make me mad or anything."

She smirked. "Even the slapstick joke?"

I chuckled. "Let's just say I have a history with clever insults." 

Connie was about to reply back, but we saw the arrived at the docks. The problem was that there were no boats or teachers. The docks were completely empty, and night had already descended on us, making it hard to see anything past the water.

I walked up to the edge of the dock, examining the waters around it. "The Great Lake is an estimated kilometre deep and probably freezing cold." Connie told me. "Wouldn't be a smart idea to swim across, genius."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not that stupid, I'm just thinking of what we can do to get across the quickest."

Connie walked up to stand beside me, joining me in my thought. Then it struck me.

"What year is your older brother in, Connie?" I asked her out of the blue.

Connie looked confused but answered the question anyways. "He's a sixth year Ravenclaw, why?"

I turned around and starting looking through my bag for something. "Does he blab about spells and charms a bunch during the breaks?"

She scoffed. "Does he! He always is practising his spells during the summer, but only to prank me or my little brother." Connie told me as I pulled out my wand from my bag, then closing it and carrying it. "This summer, I got out of the shower and when I was drying my hair, he kicked down the door to the washroom and froze my hair! It was so annoying-"

I watched the waves of the water, as the seemed to go towards the school shore. "Do you remember what he said?"

"Glay-see?" She tried to pronounce. "Glay-eye? No, it was glacius!"

"That's what the spell sounded like!" I exclaimed out loud. My mom wanted me to get a head start this summer in magic before school started, so she asked my great  _bibi_  to teach me some important spells while she was away at work. Of course, I didn't have a wand, so I just watched her as she performed the spells. One of them was a freezing spell, but I had forgotten about it soon after because of my horrible memory. 

I pointed my brand-new wand at the lake water. But before I could say anything, Connie grabbed my hand and pulled it towards her her chest. This caused my entire body to be pulled towards her with my body less than three centimetres three centimetres from her body. She was only tall enough to reach my eyes, but the look on her face scared me enough.

"If you're going to do what I think you're doing, then don't" She sternly commanded of me before pushing me backwards, almost making me fall into the lake. Connie looked around the the lake. "There has to be another way of doing this that doesn't require us to try spells."

I sighed as I shoved my wand into my front pocket. I walked around the dock, trying to think of something. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a rustling bush on the edge of the forest. In curiosity, I walked off the docks and onto the beach beside the forest to get a better look. 

"What are you doing?!" I heard Connie scream from behind me, but I ignored it as I ventured further.

As I got closer, an odd nasally neigh ringed out from the shaking bush. I stopped dead in my tracks, but buried my fear to go see what it was. I pushed the bush aside and saw one of the most strangely beautiful creatures in existence.

The beast looked like a cross between a horse and dragon, with it four legs and scaly body along with leathery wings. I noticed a large scar on left cheek of it's head, which seemed deep and painful to receive. It's skin slightly shined in the moonlight, which made me able to see the problem of the animal. A thick vine had wrapped itself around the two left legs of the poor's thing's body, making it difficult to escape.

"U-Umm... hold on a s-second buddy." I told the animal as I turned around to dig through the sand behind me. I found a rather sharp cackle underneath a rock, and went back to the beast. I slowly moved my hand towards the vine, trying not to scare it. The creature seemed to calm down enough for me to grab the vine and start cutting it with the shell. I looked at the beast's face every couple of seconds to make sure it wasn't going to freak out. When I finally cut through the vine, the animal sprang up in joy. This startled me so much that I fell backwards, but the animal moved quickly to catch me before I landed on the sand.

I saw Connie run towards me. "Hey, are you okay?" She asked me, dusting off some dirt from my robe.

I scratched behind the animal's ear. "I'm fine, but do you see this?" I said to her.

Connie looked at me like I grew a hand out of the top of my head. "What?" She said. "I don't see anything."

"What?" I questioned. "You don't see the giant beast I'm petting right now?"

She sighed. "You must be hallucinating or something, maybe you got a concussion or something when you broke your nose." She grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the creature. "C'mon, we don't have much time before-"

The beast seemed to be mad at Connie, and ran in front of her. The creature breathed so heavily on her, that you could see her hair being blown back by the exhale. Connie froze in her tracks and quickly let go of my hand.

"What. Was. THAT." She whispered to me.

I walked around her to rub the neck of the animal. "That was the beast I was talking about." I looked at the animal's wings, and suddenly I got an idea. "How smart do you think magical animals are?" I asked Connie. Before she could answer, the winged horse nuzzled into my neck before huffing against my cheek.

I rubbed my chin, thinking it was worth a shot I said my request in the most simple way I could. "Hogwarts?" The creature neighed before lowering its body, like it was offering us to get on. I was surprised it actually worked, but I had no time to ponder the intelligence of non-humanoid animals. I jumped onto the animal, then I extended a hand to Connie.

She took a few steps back. "Oh, no no no NO!" She yelled at me. "I don't want to fly anything today, let alone the fact that I can't see the thing and you look like your floating in the air. I'd rather you try and pull off a third year charm on the lake than do that!"

I sighed. "I mean, if you want to be late for the Sorting Hat Ceremony. Ya know, the thing that dictates your future at this school forever and ever. Also, you'd be stranded outside of Hogwarts for an unknown amount of time until someone notices that your missing."

Connie eyed me, then cracked her knuckled before grabbing my hand to get on. It took her a few tries to figure out what she was sitting on, but as soon as she was able to sit properly, the animal took off into the sky.

I was sitting in the front, wrapping my arms around the neck of the flying horse. Connie was holding onto me so tight that it felt like she was trying to squeeze out my stomach with her arms. The short time we were in the air, I had the most gorgeous view I could ever imagine of the castle. The way the moon reflected onto the lake was stunning, and the way I felt like I was on top of the world was breath taking. The breeze that blew onto me was chilly, but refreshing and almost fun. I wish the experience could last forever, but at the speed we were going at, it only lasted about three minutes before the animal landed in front of the main entrance.

Connie got off as soon as she felt the animal touch the ground, looking frizzled and shook. I jumped onto the solid ground, and before the creature left, I scratched the back of its ear one more time. I watched the beast as it flew off towards the forest to most likely rejoin the rest of it's family, making a mental note to study more about magical beings. After processing the fact that I just flew on a winged horse across a lake into Hogwarts ground (not as easy as it sounds), I turned around to see that the main door was still open. I grabbed Connie's hand before dragging her across the court to run through the grand double doors.

Once we got past them and into the castle, the both of us had to stop to gather our surroundings. I knew the school was large, but the size of just the first floor was completely ridiculous. The cost to just build this place must have been through the roof, not to mention the extra fees of all the extravagant decorations. I saw a pile of luggage near the entrance, and I threw my backpack onto the pile, and Connie followed suit with her bag. As soon as we did, the doors behind us abruptly slammed shut, startling the both of us.

"So," Connie said to me. "now that you've given me a permanent fear of heights, where in the bloody hell is everybody?"

I walked forward and stood in between a four-way hallway. I could hear something towards the right hallway, so I motioned Connie to follow me. As we walked down the hall, the sound of people talking got louder and louder until we saw someone peek out of what I was guessing was the entrance to the Great Hall. The lady that walked out was pale and lanky, with small glasses hanging from her nose bridge. She looked middle aged, and was most likely was a professor at Hogwarts. She had a pointed hat on as well as a long teacher's robe.

She looked at us and sighed. "There are the missing first years!" The lady said as she walked towards us. "Where have you two been? The Sorting Ceremony is about to start and- good heavens! What happened to your nose, dear?"

I thought Connie did a good job of resetting it, but it probably started swelling and bruising. Connie spoke for me. "Um, we're late because Rio were sleeping on the train, so I had to wake him up, then they were so startled that they fell over and-"

The lady scoffed. "Well it doesn't matter, both of you still late, and you." She said, looking at me. "After the Sorting Ceremony and dinner, ask around for Madam Pomfrey and she'll help you patch up. Then, tomorrow, the BOTH of you will be seeing the Headmaster first thing in the morning at 8am."

"But-" Connie was cut off.

"No buts." The lady sternly told her. "Now get into the Great Hall right now."

Me and Connie quickly obeyed and walked as quickly as we could into the Great Hall. As soon as we did, it was an even grander sight than the entrance. There were four long tables to represent the four houses, with their banners hanging from the ceiling. Candles were magically floating mid air high above us, somehow not dripping hot wax everywhere. The amount of students at this school was mind-boggling, with each table looking extremely full even before the Ceremony. There was one long table at the front of the hall, seating all the teachers for dinner. As we walked down the middle, I spotted my two brothers at the Slytherin table and waved at them as they waved at me. I also saw a couple of familiar faces from the train like Pyrrhus and MJ at the Hufflepuff table. I heard my named being shouted from the Gryffindor table, with the Weasley family cheering me as I joined the other first years at the front of the hall.

I felt Connie tap my shoulder, I looked and she was pointing at a boy sitting with the Ravenclaws. "That's my brother, Randolf." I couldn't deny the fact that Connie and her brother looked fairly similar minus the skin thing. His hair was buzzcut and pitch black, with the same skinny frame as his sister. Before I could say anything to her though, another girl approached Connie then grabbed her arm.

"There you are, Connie!" The girl said. "C'mon, me and the others have front row seats!" Connie could only wave goodbye before her friend dragged her into the crowd.

I realized I was standing at the back, alone and looking generally miserable. I was able to spot a familiar shade of red hair around the front, so I took and deep breath and started weaving through the crowd. I accidentally stepped on someone's foot, but thankfully he thought it was someone else. I was fortunately correct in my assumption and the red haired boy was none other than Ron Weasley. I tapped on his shoulder, and he quickly whipped around to see who it was.

"Hi Rio- oh my gosh, what happened to your nose?" He said to me.

I sighed. "I-It's a long story, I'll tell y-you later." I noticed Ron was standing beside the same boy with glasses I saw on the train. I extended my hand "I'm a-afraid we haven't m-met, I'm Rosario D-Dourado, b-but most people call me R-Rio."

The boy shook my hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Harry Potter."

I felt my mouth open in surprise as I let go of the handshake "Like, the "Boy W-Who Lived" Harry P-Potter?" I asked him.

He nodded as he used his hand to move his bangs from his forehead. On it was the infamous lightning scar above his right eyebrow.

"W-Well, i-it's an h-honour to m-meet you, H-Harry Potter." I said, my anxiety causing me to stutter every other word.

He warmly smiled. "Don't worry about it, just treat me like you would treat Ron."

I was a bit flabbergasted. "Wait, y-you know I'm friends w-with Ron?"

Harry nodded. "Ron talked about you on the train ride here."

I made a mental note to thank Ron later as I saw the lady who found us call for people's attention.

She introduced herself as Professor McGonagall to the us first years and then welcomed back the rest of the students. She explained the process of the Sorting Ceremony, which was a simple enough concept. When she calls your name, you walk up, sit down on the stool, and she puts the Sorting Hat on our heads. We wait until the Hat tells us our house and then we go sit down at that table. Repeat until all first years have been accounted for, then we have dinner. Everyone lined up in alphabtical order on a first name system sorted into rows to make space, which thankfully put be right beside my cousin, Rhys. When he spotted me, he ran over and started examining my nose.

"What happened to your nose, Rio?" He questioned me, getting a bit too close to my face for comfort. Rhys has always been the most caring one out of my family for my generation. I took a small step back and gentlely moved his hand away from my nose.

"Rhys, I'm fine." I reassure him. "After the dinner, I'm going to get it patched up."

He crossed his arms and gave me a look. "You promise?" He asked me. "Because if your lying just to get me out of your hair then I'm not coming to patch you up."

I smiled and rolled my eyes. "I promise, blonde boy."

"Good." He said before turning around to face the front.

Ron came shuffling over to me. "I just realized she meant our first names." He huffed out.

I laughed at my friend for a brief moment until I spotted some commotion in front of us.

"Oi!" An Irish boy  said before budging in front of a girl. "Move, lady!"

"Stop pushing me!" The girl said to the boy in front of her. "All the S's are behind me, moron!" The boy turned around and stuck his tongue out like he was five. I recognized the girl being the one that was sitting with Malfoy on the train, I think Pansy was her name? I decided to not to ponder on the thought anymore and intervened.

I walked up to the short white boy and tapped on his shoulder. He quickly whipped around and gave me a nasty look.

"What do you want?" He rudely said to me.

I cleared my throat. "What's your name?"

He seemed confused but answered anyways. "Seamus."

"Well um, then Pansy's right." I said, gambling that I got her name right. "All the S's are behind us."

I took the boy a couple seconds to realize his mistake before profusely apologizing to the girl and quickly leaving out of embarrassment. I was about to walk back to my spot before I felt the girl grab my shoulder. I looked back at her and she mouthed me a silent thank you before letting go. I gave her a smile before finally getting to my spot.

Ron was giving me a weird look by the time I came back. "Why are you helping her?"

I quirked my eyebrow. "What do you mean Ron?"

"That's Pansy Parkinson!" He informed me. "Any Parkinson is bound to be trouble."

I was a bit taken back by Ron's bluntness. "Don't judge a book by it's cover, Ron." I told him. "Anyone can be good if they tried."

Ron scoffed. "But in this case, the book is on fire." He said to me before turning around.

Before the ceremony started, the Sorting Hat sang a song for the first years. The song detailed the houses and the traits of the members in them. Ron whispered to me that the Hat spends most of it's time making up these songs. Professor McGonagall started reading off names from the list, calling up first years to be sorted into their house. After the first couple of names, I finally heard a familiar name.

"Aisha Delacroix." The professor called up, and I spotted the girl walking slowly up to the stool before taking a seat.

Professor McGonagall carefully set the hat down on my friend, and immediately sprung to life.

"Let's see... a decent amount of hard-working behaviour and kind attitude. That seems to be an easy pick- ohhhhh what's this?"

I could spot Aisha starting to sweat, nervous about something the Hat was envisioning.

"Oh dear child, the bravery and nerve you have at this age is astounding. Which changes my decision to GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindor table erupted in cheers and welcomed Aisha with open arms to the house. I wondered what the Hat was seeing, but that thought was cut off by the next name after the cheers stopped.

"Amore Palladino." The professor read off the list. Cheers could be heard from the Slytherin table, as his five older siblings and their friends tried to embarrass their youngest brother. Amore turned around to roll his at at them before sitting down on the stool. The Hat barely touched his head before screaming out the his house.

"SLYTHERIN!"

Amore quickly got off the stool and walked over to the Slytherin table in glory, with what looked like half the table greeting him and hugging him. It doesn't come to a surprise when I tell you that the Palladino's are quite popular.

I recognized a few people that went up, like Blaise (who was quickly sorted into Slytherin), and then I heard Connie's name being called up.

"Constance Bunker."

The uniquely skinned girl was met with some laughing from students, but it didn't seem to effect her. She sat down on the chair, and had a small conversation with the Sorting Hat. Well, it was less of a nice conversation and more of a quiet argument between the two. Connie was throwing some major sass towards the Sorting Hat during the argument, which made for quite the entertaining sorting. About three minutes in the Sorting Hat gave up.

"With that wit? There's only one house who would find that appealing. RAVENCLAW!"

I burst out laughing with Ron as the Ravenclaw table made room for Connie while asking about both how she was so good at insulting people (or things in this case), and thankfully no one at the table said anything about her skin.

After that, everything went as expected with the usual suspects being sorted into Slytherin. Crabbe, Daphne, Draco, and Goyle. But then, the real main event came when the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, was called up to be sorted. Everyone went silent in anticipation, and the Hat and Harry argued long enough to be considered a hatstall. Until the moment of truth came.

For the third time tonight, someone I knew was sorted into the house for heroes known as Gryffindor. The other houses seemed to be disappointed that Harry didn't join their house, but maybe it was just destiny for him.

It felt like an eternity until the line got close to me. Parkinson was sorted into Slytherin, leaving Rhys, some girl who I quickly remembered as Robyn, and Ron until I was called up.

"Rhys Gallagher." Professor McGonagall said.

Rhys quickly walked over to the stool and sat down. The hat barely brushed his head before it made it's decision.

"HUFFLEPUFF"

The Hufflepuff politely clapped with some cheers being made for him as he approached the table. It made sense, with Rhys being Rhys. He greeted and shook the hands of some other his fellow Hufflepuffs before they quieted down

"Robyn Hood." Professor McGonagall called out. The shy girl, who still had her scarf on for some reason. Everyone seemed confused about it, but didn't say anything as the hat was placed on her head.

"Not from around here, eh?" The hat questioned, and Robyn softly nodded. "What's an American doing at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and not Ilvermorny, hm?"

A murmur formed in the Great Hall. I saw Robyn mutter something in response.

"I see... don't worry, I'll get you sorted." The hat said to Robyn before staying silent for a couple of seconds.

"Looks like this one is easy. RAVENCLAW!"

The Ravenclaw table cheered and welcomed Robyn to their house, but she did get a couple of weird looks from people. I guess I didn't really think about the fact that she should be in Ilvermorny instead of Hogwarts when we were on the train. After everyone quieted down, McGonagall called up Ron to the stool. I never understood why Ron was always so worried about his sorting, because it's pretty obvious what's gonna happen.

 "Ah, another Weasley. Well, I know just what to do with you. GRYFFINDOR!"

He sighed in relief as his family welcomed him to Gryffindor house. Which meant only one thing.

"Rosario Dourado."

I seemed a bit out of place among the other first years due to my height, but I walked up to the stool while sweating out frogs. I sat down and Professor McGonagall put the Sorting Hat on me. There was a silence for about a minute, with the hat saying nothing to me as it thought. I didn't want to be the odd one out on my family, and I've always supported Slytherin growing up. I don't agree with some of their core ideals, but being a Dourado means you sport the serpent when you can. I'm scared I'll end up like Pip, but in a different house. I can take bullying, but the fact that if I go to a different house might make things extremely hard for me. I know my family won't mind, but Slytherin is what they are all secretly hoping for.

"Another one of these, huh?" The Hat said to me. "The resourcefulness and determination of a a pure-blood Slytherin is painted all over you. Your brothers seem to be doing well in Slytherin as well."

"W-Well?" I blurted out. "Then why t-the wait?"

The Hat sighed. "I can feel the fire burning inside you, and your full potential of that fire won't be found in the fraternity based Slytherin. If you want to find yourself, you must be challenged in both your ideals and skills."

I was reasonably confused by that statement. "But my family is in Slytherin." I told the Hat.

"I know." The Hat told me. "But, where you're going, you need to be alone."

"But-"

The Hat cut me off. "Arguing won't make this any easier. Slytherin isn't the answer for you, child. Even with all of your traits matching up, your heart won't be able to accept Slytherin as your own. You are more than that, I can tell."

The Great Hall was silent, with everyone listening to me and the Hat argue.

I take a deep breath and dare to ask the Hat what I've been thinking. "If you are so certain on a different house, what is the house?"

My heart was beating faster than I thought I could for the five seconds of quiet between me and the Hat before he announced his decision.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

I looked over to the Slytherin table, and everyone seemed confused and shocked at the Hat's choice. Amore was probably the most confused, trying to make sense of the fact that we were now separated via houses. But at the Gryffindor table, the Weasleys were hollering and cheers for me. I slowly got off the stool and made my way towards the Gryffindor table. As soon as I took a seat, the Weasley twins sat on either side of me and started asking me things.

"How did you get sorted here?" Fred asked me.

"I reckon bribery, Slytherins being cunning and all." George suggested.

Percy, who was across the table, rolled his eyes at his younger brothers. "You knuckleheads can't possibly be serious." He said, coming to my defence. "The Sorting Hat is always right. Besides, what would a hat even do with money?"

George and Fred sighed as they got up to go back to their friends, letting Ron and Harry sit beside me.

Harry gave me a sympathetic look. "Argued with the Hat, too?" He asked me.

I nodded. "I j-just wanted to be with m-my family." I muttered.

Ron patted me on the back. "Don't worry." He reassured me. "You got the Weasley Family Protection Force to help you if anyone tries to mess with you!"

Me and Harry laughed at his joke. "Ron, I'm sure I can handle myself if something comes up."

The rest of the Sorting went smoothly, but my thoughts were still rushing in my head. Why Gryffindor? I don't think I'm brave or daring, not even very chivalrous. Maybe I don't notice it? I mean, with this bomb of information, my first year is going to be much, much more interesting.

**~TO BE CONTINUED~**


	5. A New Friend

After the dinner (which was absolutely delicious), I followed Professor McGonagall's orders and asked around for Madam Pomfrey. Turns out, she had already left to her office in the Hospital Wing. Thankfully, the Hospital Tower is connected by the Grand Staircase, which is where everyone was going anyways.

Percy rounded up all the first years and instructed us to follow him through the halls. As I was walking with Harry and Ron, I heard glimpses of conversations from the other first years.

"I can't we are in the same house as THE Harry Potter!" One boy said to his friend. I recognized the boy to be Seamus Finnigan, as I learnt his full name during the ceremony.

The tall black boy beside him was Dean Thomas, who seemed a bit confused about why his friend was so excited. "What's important about this guy anyways?"

Seamus then went on a long rant about the Boy Who Lived, not knowing that Harry was right behind him. As we approached the entrance to the Grand Staircase, I felt a tug at my sleeve. I turned around to see Aisha grinning at me.

"So, you excited?" She asked me.

I shrugged. "A bit more shocked than excited."

Aisha laughed. "I guess you were wrong about being "doomed" to Slytherin."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "I guess so..."

Percy opened the doors to the Grand Staircase, which gained a collective gasp from all the first years. I didn't hear much about the stairs because my brothers have their common rooms in the dungeon, so I only knew about its existence through books I've read. As we all piled into the small platform which led to all the stairs, Percy told us some facts and tips about the Grand Staircase. Just listening to that made me want to break my nose again, so I quickly looked around for the Hospital Tower. I told Percy beforehand about it so he knew, and I split off from the rest onto a different staircase. One thing I did know about the Grand Staircase was the talking paintings. To most of the muggle-born students, they were caught off guard by the pieces of art suddenly speaking to them, but I wasn't really phased by it as our family had one of my late  _shangazi,_ Nakakande (my great auntie). She's a bit annoying, but you get used to it after awhile. She passed long before I was born after a bad outbreak of dragon pox got to her. After asking a couple in a painting where the Hospital Wing was, they pointed at a door on the second floor. I thanked them before quickly running up the stairs before they could move on me.

I opened the door to find myself in a hallway that connected the two towers together. There were windows on both sides of the corridor which gave me a view of outside Hogwarts. All the windows were closed except for the one a couple paces in front of me to my right. The hall itself made me feel calmer with the only light that came in being from the moon. I saw the entrance to the Hospital Wing at the end of the hall and started walking towards it.

As I passed by the open window, I heard a screech from outside. I stopped dead in my tracks and the sound rang through my ears again. It was coming from outside, so I took a couple steps to just barely look out the window. I then heard the uneven flapping of wings coming towards me, but before I could react something barrelled into my face, causing me to fall backwards. My head was already experiencing enough pain with my broken nose, but being thrown backwards and landing directly on the soft the plushly material known as pure concrete doesn't help anything. The creature that had tackled me slowly climbed off of my face while I heard something else come through the window. I sat up to see what tackled me, only to see something that almost made me scream outright.

Sitting to the left of me was what I believed to be a baby griffin. One thing about my  _shangazi_  was that she was a Magizoologist in her time, and she was always telling me about the crazy beasts she met when travelling. I found some of her photos one night when I was bored and found her work journals, and one photo she had was of a family of griffins. So no doubt, what was sitting next to me was a griffin. One thing I did question was how a beast native to Greece made it's way to the UK. Then to the right of me was something I couldn't recognize from her journals. It looked like a large black baby panther but had this mysterious energy surrounding it that made me think it wasn't.

Trying to remember what I read from my  _shangazi's_  journal, I slowly got up from where I was sitting to stand over the two creatures. They didn't seem like they wanted to hurt me, in fact, they looked like they needed help. They seemed skinny and malnourished, with scars covering their necks and faces. I noticed the fur of the panther-like animal to be frizzed in the shape of the griffin's claws, meaning that the griffin was probably carrying the cub with its feet.

I got down on one knee and the two creatures came closer to me. The griffin started going through my pockets while I was forcing myself to stay calm. The little beast took out the roast chicken sandwich my great  _bibi_  made for me before I left on the train. I forgot that I even had it in my pocket. The griffin was having trouble trying to unwrap the sandwich from its plastic wrap, but then the cub bite opens the thing and pulled off the bread and vegetables.

"You two seem to be friends, huh?" I said to myself.

They started fighting over the piece of meat as soon as I finished saying it, and on impulse, I grabbed the chicken from them. The creatures eyed me in what was first anger, but then confusion when I split the chicken in two and set down one piece for each of them. The two animals were a bit hesitant at first, but then immediately chowed down on the cooked meat.

I grabbed the pieces of bread and vegetable off the ground, stuffing it into what remained of the wrap and closing it. I put the bag of now dirty food into my pocket to throw out later. I watched the two creatures eat their food, then noticing the shared tags hung on by a tightly knotted string that was on their necks. Taking a deep breath, I tried to grab the tag on the cub's neck, but it quickly turned around to face me. I froze with my hand only a couple of centimetres from the animal's mouth. The cub sniffed my hand for a few seconds as I felt my heartbeat rise dramatically.

Against what I thought was the impromptu amputation of my hand, the cub started licking it my fingers. As the cub was busy doing that, I used my free hand to read off of the tag on its neck.

**Species: Wampus Cat (estimated three months old, male)**

**Export: Appalachian Mountains, United States**

**Import: Knockturn Alley, England**

**Price of Sale: 2000 Galleons**

**Best Use: Organs (too aggressive to tame)**

I didn't know what a Wampus Cat was, but I made a mental note to look around the library for information on it. I let go of the tag and realized what these animals were here for. The illegal smuggling of magical animals is something my great auntie would always talk about. She dedicated a large chunk of her life trying to stop it. These two must've been able to escape before they arrived at Knockturn Alley, which made sense why the unlikely pair would even consider helping each other, or accepting the help of me. Griffins are usually quite aggressive to anybody, especially humans.

I moved my hand away from the cub and wiped off the saliva on my robe (I have an extra anyways). I stood up and tried to think of what to do with the two animals for the time being. The two baby creatures, although small now, will most likely grow bigger and bigger within the next couple of months, making them impossible to hide inside the castle.

The baby griffin waddled up to me and turned around. I must've not noticed it earlier, but on the griffin's back was a small sleeping owl. It had obviously endured a lot from the scars, and was also smuggled with the other two as it had a tag on it's wing. I carefully picked up the sleeping bird from the griffin's back, and as soon as I did, the griffin picked up the Wampus cat and flew out the window towards the forest.

In general confusion, I just stood there trying to process what happened. If anyone saw me, I probably looked like some idiot holding a bird.

When I snapped out of my confusion, I started looking at the rather cute owl for any clue of what it was. I gently picked up the tag and read it.

**Species: Taliabu Masked Owl (extremely rare, estimated four months old, male)**

**Export: Maluku, Indonesia**

**Import: Knockturn Alley**

**Price of Sale: 1000 Galleons**

**Best Use: Quills and/or Taxidermy**

**Notice: Only one successfully caught, cage at all costs**

Rare? I guess by rare they meant critically endangered, which is what they are. It's screwed up that they would steal these birds from their families just to be used as quills instead of actual pets. I guess someone would notice the fact that an African owl was in England sooner or later.

I suddenly remembered why I was here in the first place and slowly walked towards the Hospital Wing, trying not to wake the owl in its slumber. When I finally walked in, the place was completely dark except for one light next to a bed. On that one bed was a boy whose skin was covered in red blotches, and visibly trying not to scratch them. Even with his red blotches, I could tell that he had reasonably pale skin. On his short wavy light brown hair was a flat, circular hat that looked like the hats I saw my old muggle neighbours wear. I remember asking them one day about them and they told me it was because they were Jewish. Since I was five though, they explained it to me in the most basic way possible, so my knowledge about it is quite limited since they moved back to Israel shortly after. He was of an average build, though compared to me a bit short. He didn't have anything indicating his house, meaning he was a first year like me. 

The boy looked up at me while scratching his face and smiling. "Ya lookin' for the nurse, chum?" I slowly nodded my head. He started scratching his neck instead. "She'll be back in a bit to help me with my allergies, wait on the bed next to me for now."

Still holding the bird, I walked over to that bed and gently sat down on the bed facing him.

He rolled up his sleeve to itch his arm. "Ya 'ere for yer hooter or the owl?" He asked me, catching me off guard. I didn't really feel like speaking, so I used my thumb to point at my nose to avoid disrupting the bird.

"Not much of a talker, huh?" He said before pointing at himself. "Well, I guess that means I have to introduce myself first. I'm Elijah Schwartz, but you can call me Eli for short."

I cleared my throat. "I'm Rosario D-Dourado, but most p-people call me Rio."

He grinned. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance! I'm guessing you're a first year too?" Eli asked me. I nodded and he pointed at the bare spot on his robe where most people have their emblems. "Me too, I got into Gryffindor. Don't understand why they have to separate the students like this, they didn't do that at my old private school. Maybe it's just a wizard thing?"

I heard a door open and close from the back of the Hospital Wing, and I saw what I guessed was Madam Pomfrey walking towards us holding a cup of some strange liquid. She walked up to Eli and handed him the cup.

"Drink up, Mr. Schwartz." The nurse told him as she grabbed his hand to stop him from scratching.

Eli looked at Madam Pomfrey in confusion. "This isn't an EpiPen."

Madam Pomfrey laughed. "There's no need for muggle medicine here at Hogwarts when drinking that potion will immediately stop your allergic reaction and revert all of your hives and eczema.

After hearing that, Eli downed the entire cup like a champ before carefully setting it down on the nightstand next to him. I saw as the red blotches on his body rapidly starting to disappear. He quickly grabbed the mirror next to him and looked at his reflection to see that his face was back to normal. He smiled, which made me finally notice the deep dimple on his right cheek.

He put the mirror back before quickly getting up and running out. "Thanks, Madam Pomfrey and see you around Rio!" He yelled at us.

Madam Pomfrey opened her mouth to tell something to Eli, but he had already left before she could. She mumbled something about how he didn't know there was corn in chicken pot pie then lady turned to me. "Ah, you're the student Professor McGonagall was complaining about at the dinner, Rosario Dourado was it?" She said to me. I blushed in embarrassment.

She gave me a warm smile. "Don't worry dear, I'll fix you up quick."

The nurse took out her wand, not seeming to notice that I was holding a sleeping owl in my hands. "It looks like the break was worse before, did anyone help you fix it?" Madam Pomfrey asked me.

"A f-friend of mine r-reset it shortly after-r I broke it." I was able to sputter out.

Madam Pomfrey suddenly gave me a concerned look, lowering her wand for a moment. "You have a stutter, dear?" I simply nodded to avoid trying to speak.

"Well, if you want help with that, I can look around for someone to help you." She told me as she straightened my face. She looked into my eyes. "Would you like that?"

I stared blankly at her, hoping she got my message of indecision across to her. "Well, stutters can make verbal spellcasting really difficult." She explained to me "And non-verbal spell casting is incredibly difficult for wizards your age."

I shrugged as she raised her wand towards my nose. "But for the meantime, however, you need that nose fixed. Now, dear, this might hurt a pinch, but it's like taking off a band-aid but inside your nose."

Before I could even cringe at that thought, Madam Pomfrey flicked her wand and I heard a sickening crunch of my nose as it popped perfectly back into place. Even with the fact that my nose barely moved, it still felt like bodybuilder gave me an Indian Burn on my nose bone.

"Ah!" Was all I got out when the pain first hit, as I didn't want to start swearing like a sailor in front of a teacher. Small amounts of blood started leaking from my nose, but Madam Pomfrey handed me a cloth to soak it up with.

She grabbed Eli's empty cup and started making the beds using her wand. "When your ready, quickly head off towards your common room." She told me.

I set the bird down on the bed as I tried to figure out where to put the owl. My cloak's huge pocket was big enough to fit the bird, but not so big that it would just fall in. After a minute of trying positions for the sleeping bird, I found that the best one was where it's head was barely sticking out. I quickly grabbed the cloth and put it back against my nose. Slowly I slid out of the bed, trying to cause the least amount of movement against the already high up pocket. I started walking towards the exit of the Hospital Wing.

"Oh, and Miss. Dourado!" I heard Madam Pomfrey say to me. I turned around to face her. "Wash your hands after your done handling the owl."

I was a bit surprised, she didn't seem to say anything about the owl or even really looking at the little thing. But I simply nodded at her before I quickly left the Hospital Wing.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

After asking around, I finally found the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room.

The door was guarded by a painting of what I heard was called the Fat Lady. A bit rude, but I guess it's the most straightforward means of explaining it.

"Password?" the Fat Lady asked me.

Mentally, I started panicking. I didn't want to be stuck outside the common room overnight just because I didn't know the password.

"Um... I f-forgot." I accidentally said out loud.

The Fat Lady laughed before taking a large swig of her wine and quickly downing it. "And what are you supposed to be, the Spectacular Sputtering Slytherin who's trying to get into the GRYFFINDOR Common Room?"

I gave a look to the Fat Lady. "What?"

"You can't fool me this time, I know a new Dourado when I see one." She said to me. I was a bit taken back by how she knew who I was so easily. "Every Dourado that has ever been to Hogwarts is in Slytherin, and everyone one of them has tried to get into the Gryffindor Common Room to mess with my house- well guess what, ya thick gob? That stops here!"

I suddenly remembered Pip and my  _babu_ talking about how they would mess with Gryffindors. Pip got in trouble for filling the entire first floor of the room with shaving cream, and apparently, he talked about how he set pixies loose into the room in his fifth year. Then, when my mom tried to say that they were being childish, my great  _bibi_  telling us about how my home got set home early for Christmas because she and her friends filled all of the Gryffindor's stockings with a full bottle of what they thought was specially flavoured distilled pop, but was actually the hardest liquor she could bribe the house elves to give them. Then Roldão joined in and told us about how he and his friends- you get the point.

I sighed. "I know my family has done some bad but honestly hilarious pranks to Gryffindor through their own common room. But, I'm in Gryffindor!"

I never knew a painting could wheeze, but here I am being proven wrong by the Fat Lady.

"Oi!" I heard some behind me. "What's goin' on 'er?"

I turned around to see an extremely tall man with both long hair and a long beard. Pip told me about the half-giant half-human gamekeeper named who the teachers called Hagrid. A good portion of the Slytherins made fun of him, but he said that he was actually quite nice. I made an educated guess that he was Hagrid.

Being startled by the man's sudden appearance, I could barely speak out words.

"Another Dourado is trying to get into the Gryffindor Common Room." The Fat Lady said to him.

He scoffed. "Well, for yer information, this Dourado is the best example of a brave Gryffindor if I've ever seen one! I saw 'em being sorted today! Sorting Hat took its pretty time with this bloke."

The Fat Lady rolled her eyes. "What do you know Hagrid? You were expelled. What are you even doing up here at this hour anyway?"

"I got called up for a dangerous animal sighting in the school. Speaking of that, I'll be on my way then!"

As the tall man turned around, he dropped something from his hand. When he bent down to pick it up, he whispered something in my ear.

" _Caput Draconis_." He said. Before I could even ask why he was saying that to me, he briskly walked down the stairs towards the exit.

I turned back to face the Fat Lady and she rolled her eyes. "Let me sleep, lad." She told me.

I realized what Hagrid meant by that I cleared my throat. "Caput Dra-Draconis."

The Fat Lady was stunned for a moment before taking a deep breath. "Usually I would still say no, but I'm too tired right now to even care."

I half smiled at the Fat Lady before the painting slowly swung open, revealing a not a doorway, but just a large circle cut into the wall. I guess it's a doorway, but maybe for the avant-garde type people.

I stepped into the hole in the wall and was greeted by a cozy common room that seemed to be made up of a thousand shades of red. You were welcomed by a warm fireplace that you could sit by on the extremely comfy looking armchairs. Above the fireplace was the fitting mantle of a lion. There was a school bulletin board next to a series of bookcases full of novels and textbooks. The many windows gave the students a nice view of Hogwarts, with a nice view of the field from where we were. To the back were two spiral staircases that most likely led to the girls and boys dormitories.

There was a strangely large empty space in one of the corners of this nice room, with only my trunk left awkward on it's side. They probably stacked everyone's things in the corner for the arrival. I walked over to pick it up, and as soon as I did I felt a stir in my pocket. I set my trunk down and reached into my pocket and carefully picked up the owl from my pocket. I let the bird the bird climb onto my arm from my hand.

The owl seemed confused and disoriented on where it was and why they were there. The bird looked at me in wonder, and quietly hooted at me. Compared to the other owls I've seen, it seemed a bit more shaky than most people.

I sat myself onto the ground and set down the owl onto the carpet. It waddled around, most likely feeling carpet for the first time. My mom did a story a couple years ago about the Taliabu Masked Owls and how difficult the bird was to document for both muggles and wizards. There have been few sightings of them, making some people to believe that they've gone extinct and we don't even know. Well, at least I can confirm that they aren't anymore. Coming from the barn owl family, it could blend in with most owls at night, but in the morning you would be able to notice the masked mark of the bird's name. The part that would be normally a creamy white in barn owls was smoky like it had been painted over with soot from a fire. Not even just the face, but the rest of it body had a dark tone that a normal barn owl.

"You're the only ever one caught huh?" I asked the owl, like he could even understand me. "You must be pretty clever to be able to escape with your other friends."

The owl flew up and sat at the window still, looking out the window at the forest beyond the field. I got up to join the owl in staring out the window. The ledge was big enough for me to fully sit on, so I did while making sure the owl had enough room to look out.

I sighed. "You looking for them, huh? They were probably your only friends since they took you from your family. Don't worry, I'll help you find them."

Sitting in silence, me and the owl simply stared out the window. In that silence, I tried to think of names for my new bird friend.

"Mukisa?" I said, the bird kept on looking through the window. I thought of another name. "What about Zeferino?" The bird still ignored me. "You're right, too fancy." I muttered. Then I noticed something fairly odd. The owl kept on flicking it's left wing up, but he seemed not to acknowledge that he was doing that.

"Twitchy?" I said, and ironically the owl's head flicked towards me. He then turned his body towards me and waddled towards me. I used my free hand to pet him, deciding that Twitchy would be the most fitting. I glanced at the clock and it was 9:04. I usually stay up pretty late, but after today I just wanted to sleep anywhere.

I was startled by the sound of a door slamming shut behind me, with someone running down the spiral staircase.

"What ignorant, blithering, warts..." I heard a young girl say to herself. I was too tired to really panic about social interaction anymore, so I simply stayed in the same place while petting my new found owl friend. When I heard her reach the bottom of the stairs, I turned around to see who it was.

I recognized her from the Sorting Ceremony, Hermione Granger was her name if I remember it correctly. We held awkward eye contact for a second before she decided to speak up.

"You should be in your dormitory." She sternly told me as the girl crossed her arms.

I scoffed. "Sounds like y-you've already made enemies, so I'll pass." My stuttering always dies down when I try to crack a joke or win an argument (preferably both).

She rolled her eyes. "The boy's dormitory is to the left for your information, and don't try to creep into the girl's."

In my head, I was genuinely offended, but I attempted to keep my cool. And my favourite way to control my anger is to completely shut a person down while being funny and passive-aggressive. "You know what they say about assuming, Granger?" I said as I got off the window ledge and stood up. She seemed caught off guard for me suddenly using her name, and my height compared to hers.

I do have to give it to her for being able to stand her ground, as she stood up straight and crossed her arms. "And what would that be, Dourado?"

You can't dish what you can't take. I let Twitchy climb onto my arm, where he quickly shuffled up onto my shoulder. "Well, don't assume because it makes an ass out of you and me." I told her as I walked across the room to grab my luggage.

"Watch your language." She scolded me. "And what do you mean about assuming?"

I picked up my trunk and sighed. "Boy's dormitory is on the left and first years are the door the closest to the stairs, correct?" She nodded. I proceeded to take the staircase to the right up towards the girl's rooms.

"Thank you for the information, Hermione. Looking forward to being roommates." I told her. All she did was gawk at me as I climbed up the stairs, ready to finally get some rest.

 

**~TO BE CONTINUED~**


End file.
